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THE BORZOI 
MYSTERY STORIES 

I THE WHITE ROOK 

By J. B. Harris-Burland 

II THE SOLITARY HOUSE 

By E. R. Bunsb— 





THE 

SOLITARY HOUSE 


BY 

E. R. PUNSHON 

n 



NEW YORK 

ALFRED A. KNOPF 

MCMXVI1I 


COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc. S 

/ 





PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 


©CIA506943 '■ 


0 


CONTENTS 


PART I 

I Keith Norton on the Road 9 
II The Deserted Home 18 

III A Visitor 27 

IV The Vicar 37 

V The Hidden Store 47 
VI Temptation 58 
VII The Broken Bicycle 68 

PART II 

VIII What the Nurse Saw 83 
IX Esme’s Questions 93 
X Summer Days 103 
XI A Bride 112 
XII Two Days 122 

XIII Their Decision 132 

XIV New-comers 142 

PART III 

XV Captured 153 
XVI The Grave 163 

XVII The Wentworths 172 
XVIII The Burnt Will 181 
XIX The Hidden Jewellery 191 


Contents 


XX A New Mystery 201 
XXI What Keith Found 211 

PART IV 

XXII Waiting 223 

XXIII The Police Arrive 233 

XXIV The Search 243 

XXV Files Wood at Night 252 
XXVI Tree Tops 263 

XXVII A Strange Nest 271 
XXVIII The House Roof 280 
XXIX The Explanation 289 


PART ONE 





CHAPTER I 


Keith Norton on the Road 

It made a pretty picture, as he, limping down the 
long road, came upon it suddenly at a turn in the 
path he was following; and since even a tramp may 
admire a view if he will, just as a cat may look 
at a king, Keith Norton paused for a moment to 
look and to admire. 

He was tired, too, and glad to rest for a moment, 
for he had walked five-and-twenty miles that day, 
and the ache in his weary limbs reminded him of 
the times when he had believed every tramp to 
be a lazy vagabond anxious only to escape work. 

The house that made the centre of the land- 
scape he had paused to admire was not a large one, 
but it was picturesquely situated on the slope of 
the hill against the large dark masses of surround- 
ing woods that were now in the full glory of their 
summer foliage. Above it was the crest of the hill, 
and at a little distance a small stream ran for a 
space from the spring in the open where it rose to 

Jose itself in the recesses of the wood as though 
9 


10 The S o lit ar y House 


suddenly afraid and seeking shelter there. The 
house faced due west, so that, as now the day was 
drawing to its close, the full rays of the declining 
sun shone upon it, showing every detail clearly and 
making its windows shine as though they were of 
molten gold. 

Perhaps to some degree the appeal that it made 
to the solitary watcher by the wayside lay in the 
fact that it was the first sign of human habitation 
he had seen for some hours, and after the bareness 
of the close-cropped inhospitable downs, barren 
and void of all save an occasional flock of sheep, 
this little house nestling in the trees on the green 
hill-side had for him a very attractive air. 

“Pretty little place,” he said presently and 
moved on, for it was late and he was seeking shelter, 
and he noticed that he had not gone many yards 
when the cottage on the hill-side vanished entirely 
from his sight. 

The effect was a little startling. One moment 
it was there in full view, the next it had vanished 
as though, like the little brook, it had fled into the 
woods for shelter. Though Keith was in no mood 
to interest himself in trifles, or to take an unneces- 
sary step out of his way, he turned back to see how 
it was this happened, and was aware indeed of an 
odd feeling of doubt and hesitation that made him 
anxious to assure himself the house was really there 


Keith Norton on the Road 11 


and actually existent. For when one has had noth- 
ing to eat for twenty-four hours and not much 
for two or three days previously, one’s eyes and 
brain are apt to play queer tricks. 

But the house was still there, plain and solid on 
the hill-side, and the effect of sudden disappear- 
ance was caused merely by a bend in the road that 
chanced to correspond with a sweep forward of the 
line of trees upon the hill. But now his attention 
was drawn to it Keith noticed that much the same 
thing occurred as one came down the road the 
other way, which was why the house had the effect 
of appearing with such dramatic suddenness. In 
fact, it was visible only at one point upon the road, 
and now as Keith watched the pretty little house 
solitary upon the hill-side it seemed to him to take 
on an aspect secret and aloof, as though it had 
deliberately chosen that site in order to be well 
hidden from prying eyes. 

“Bit odd,” Keith thought to himself and resumed 
his tramp’s steady, slouching pace that he knew 
must bear him a good many miles farther before 
there would be much chance of getting food or 
shelter. 

It has to be confessed that it was entirely his own 
fault that Keith Norton, at the age of three-and- 
twenty, good looking, with bright brown eyes and 
brown hair with a curl to it many a girl might have 


12 The Solitary House 

envied, gifted with good health, first-class muscles, 
and a brain of fully average quality, was at this 
moment a ragged tramp, hungry and homeless. 
The death of his father without means had closed 
the University to him in his second year, so that he 
had to leave without taking his degree, and friends 
had obtained for him quite a good position in a 
well-known, highly respected, and old-established 
house of business where he had only to be punctual 
in attendance, cultivate a neat handwriting, and 
make no mistakes in adding up, to be sure of a 
fair salary all his life, and with even before him the 
prospect of rising in due course of seniority to be 
head of his room and sit apart in a glass-enclosed 
compartment, a little like a fat goldfish in an 
aquarium. 

But unfortunately Keith Norton was not so 
punctual as he should have been, his handwriting 
was deplorable — he had learnt both it and his 
spelling at one of our historic public schools, so no 
more need be said on that score — and to add up 
figures correctly bored him to distraction. The 
end came when one fine spring morning he went 
for a walk in the country, totally forgetting that 
such places as dingy old offices in the city even 
existed. Naturally his connection with one dingy 
old office ceased abruptly, and after a somewhat 
solemn week-end spent in considering the position, 


Keith Norton on the Road 13 


Keith decided he would go to one of the colonies, 
working his way as a sailor since he had no money 
to pay his fare. 

But there seemed no unduly keen competition 
for his services at the docks when he went to visit 
them; though at last one skipper, who was in a 
hurry and could not afford to be particular, shipped 
him as a deck hand. Keith, on the strength of a 
little yachting he had done, had considered him- 
self something of a sailor man, but his experiences 
on this voyage entirely cured him of his illusions on 
the point; and as, moreover, the ship was only a 
tramp steamer making a coasting trip, his desire 
to reach the colonies was not much facilitated. A 
breakdown, total and complete, of the boat’s en- 
gines, brought the trip to a summary end in a 
small west-country port, and Keith found himself 
discharged with twelve and sixpence as pay for 
about six weeks as hard work as man could wish 
for. To his somewhat vehement protests the skip- 
per replied by explaining in hurt tones that the 
cap, woollen scarf, and one or two other small 
articles he had been supplied with had absorbed the 
rest of his earnings, and did he expect his outfit 
for nothing? 

Keith did not consider the explanation satisfac- 
tory, or a cap and woollen scarf properly described 
as an outfit, and the argument that ensued devel- 


14 The Solitary House 

oped into a fistic encounter that the skipper, get- 
ting the worst of it, ended by an appeal to the 
police. Naturally the constable he summoned, be- 
ing a true servant of the law, took the side of the 
better dressed man, and Keith, foolishly surprised 
by this — for he was young and lacked experience 
— showed his resentment in a manner which fully 
justified the constable in attempting to remove him 
to the police station. Keith thereupon knocked the 
officer down, and having thus placed himself thor- 
oughly in the wrong and realizing that a month’s 
hard labour inexorably awaits all those who as- 
sault the police in the execution of their duty, he 
returned from the scene of his exploits with some 
precipitation, not staying even to collect the twelve 
and six admittedly due to him. 

He dared not therefore stay in the town to seek 
work, and he made up his mind to tramp back to 
London. Today was the fourth day of his journey, 
and unwashen, half starved and in rags, he looked 
as desperate a character as any peaceable and quiet 
citizen might be reluctant to meet on a lonely road. 

He walked on now, tired and footsore, for about 
a quarter of a mile till he came to where a path 
led from the road he was following into the wood 
by the wayside. 

The darkness was increasing rapidly, and the 
idea came to him that perhaps he had better decide 


Keith Norton on the Road 15 


to stay for the night in the shelter of these trees 
rather than go farther and perhaps have to sleep 
out in the open, with the risk of being pounced on 
by some vigilant police officer. For during these 
last few days he had discovered that to sleep out 
in the open by reason of being unable to pay for 
a bed is an offence against the majesty of the law 
of England. This discovery and the fact that he 
supposed a warrant was out for his arrest on a 
charge of assault — though in point of fact his 
policeman was a decent soul, bore no malice, and 
had never said anything about their little adven- 
ture — together tended to make him feel a good deal 
of an outlaw and somewhat hostile towards all 
settled authority. The law, he thought, was made 
by comfortable people in order that they might re- 
main comfortable, and he being not comfortable 
— indeed quite otherwise — was in no mood to pay 
it more attention than needs must. 

During these four days of tramping his temper 
had grown a little strained, desperate indeed and 
even reckless, and it remained so as he stumbled 
now easily through the wood, seeking a snug place 
where to lie down and sleep, and even dreaming 
that somewhere he might find some berries ripe 
enough to eat and stem the hunger gnawing at him. 

It was a foolish hope, but it lured him on, and 
as he went he was aware of a curious impression as 


16 The Solitary House 


though there was some creature that followed close 
by and watched him through the trees. The im- 
pression was so strong he called out once, but got 
no answer, and when he paused to listen he could 
hear nothing. The heavy silence underneath the 
trees was unbroken by the faintest sound, and yet 
still that impression remained of there being some 
living thing near by, following and watching. 
When presently he came to an open glade and had 
crossed it he paused suddenly and crouched down 
in thick bracken to watch and wait. But he saw 
nothing, and after a time resumed his way, only to 
be almost immediately again aware of the same 
sensation of being followed and watched, so that 
the thought came to him that these woods were 
less lonely than they seemed, and he was aware of 
a certain terror and vague alarm growing slowly in 
his mind. 

However, the impression was only faint, and he 
tried to put it out of his mind, for it and his sensa- 
tion of alarm seemed to him absurd, so that when 
he came to the end of the path and found to his sur- 
prise that it had led him to the pretty little house 
on the hill-side he had admired from the road be- 
low, he forgot his fears entirely in his surprise. 

He stopped, expecting to be greeted by the loud 
barking of hostile dogs. But there was no sound at 
all, and again it came to him that about this place 


Keith Norton on the Road 17 


there was something aloof and secret. He hesi- 
tated for a moment, and he felt his heart beat a 
little quicker than usual. Then, shrugging his 
shoulders, he stepped from the shelter of the trees 
and walked across the open grassy space that lay 
between him and the house. 

“I’ll beg for food,” he said to himself bitterly; 
“why should I starve?” 

The silence remained unbroken, all was still and 
quiet, nothing stirred, nor was there any sign of 
life apparent as he drew near the house. 

Round it was a garden fenced in by a low hedge 
one passed through by means of a wooden gate. 
He pushed this open and entered, letting it close 
behind him with a bang and expecting that the noise 
would cause some one to appear. But no one 
came ; no more silent and still lay the wood he had 
just come through than did this solitary and quiet 
house upon the hill-side. 


CHAPTER II 


The Deserted Home 

He walked slowly round to the back door, and 
as he did so noticed that most of the windows 
were open, so that presumably the occupants of 
the house could not be very far away. He 
knocked, but no answer came, and when he knocked 
a second time, more loudly, there was still no 
answer. 

In the west the setting sun had reached the hori- 
zon and the hush of the coming night lay upon all 
the land. Everything was very quiet and still, 
and the only sound that broke the utter silence 
all around was the echo of his own loud knocking 
when a third time he hammered with his closed 
fist on the door. 

“They can’t be far off,” he said to himself, 
staring thoughtfully at the open window, and then 
he noticed that on the handle and latch of the 
kitchen door a spider had spun its web. 

It seemed to him that this was strange, and he 
went round to the front and knocked still more 
loudly at the door there. 

But no one answered or heeded his summons, and 
18 


The Deserted Home 19 


the quietude of the place began to take to him a 
new significance, so that he remembered again that 
queer and daunting impression he had had while 
passing through the wood of an unseen presence, 
following and watching. 

For a last time he knocked, and when he had 
waited a little and there was no answer, he went 
again to the back door where the spider had spun 
its web, and tried the latch. It lifted at once and 
the door swung open. For a moment he hesitated 
on the threshold, and standing there he shouted 
loudly: 

“Is any one at home?” 

Again there was no reply, but happening to look 
round he caught sight of something — what he 
could not see; it might have been a crouching man 
or a dog or even merely a cat prowling by — that 
moved quickly on the fringe of the trees and then 
vanished and showed suddenly and indistinctly for 
a moment again and once more was gone from 
sight. 

The idea came to Keith that there was some 
creature in the wood, the same that had followed 
and watched him during his progress through it, 
and that this creature was greatly excited and 
agitated by his movements and his apparent inten- 
tion to enter the house. Yet why this should be 
so and why this creature, whatever it might be. 


20 The Solitary House 

did not come forward and forbid him or make 
some resistance or objection to his entry, he could 
not imagine. Puzzled and wary, with a feeling 
that all this was very strange and even a little sin- 
ister, Keith pushed the back door farther open and 
entered through it to the kitchen on which it opened. 
Very quickly he crossed at once to the window and 
looked out, expecting that his action would cause 
whatever was hiding in the wood to emerge. 

But the wood lay quiet and solitary in the de- 
clining light of the dying day, perfectly still, ut- 
terly peaceful, the undisturbed shadows heavy be- 
neath the untroubled trees. After he had watched 
for some minutes and seen nothing, he began to 
think it was all his own nervous imagination that 
had deceived him and that there was nothing there. 

Turning from the window he glanced round. 
The kitchen was a bright airy room, with a table 
scrubbed to a shining cleanness in the middle of the 
floor and a large dresser well supplied with crock- 
ery opposite the window. There was a large open 
fireplace that did not seem to have been used of 
late, and he noticed that the clock on the mantel- 
piece had run down, and that here and there was 
a light covering of dust as though it were some time 
since the room had been occupied. He noticed, too, 
that there was some soot lying in various places, 
and at first he could not make out what had caused 


The Deserted Home 21 


this. But when he went into the scullery adjoin- 
ing he discovered that the soot came from there, 
from a big oil stove that seemed to have been smok- 
ing badly and that had covered everything near it 
with soot of which some had floated into the kitchen. 

On the stove was a saucepan containing eggs but 
no water, and next to it was a frying-pan with some 
very badly burnt bacon half smothered in soot. 
Keith looked at the saucepan containing the eggs 
and saw that it had boiled dry, and that a hole had 
been burnt in its bottom. He tried one of the 
eggs and found it was quite hard, and when he 
examined the lamps found them empty and the 
wicks much charred, so that apparently they had 
been allowed to bum themselves out. Obviously 
this accounted for the soot that was about, as the 
lamps would smoke badly before becoming finally 
extinguished. v 

“Whoever was frying the bacon and cooking the 
eggs must have been called away suddenly,” Keith 
said, half aloud, “and never come back. Funny!” 

Puzzled and thoughtful he went back into the 
kitchen and through the half-open door that led 
from it to the rest of the house. 

“Any one here?” he shouted, and his voice came 
back to him hollowly and there was no other 
reply. 

He went cautiously into the hall and the other 


22 The Solitary House 


rooms on the ground floor. One was the drawing- 
room, a pretty, dainty, little apartment with art 
paper on the walls and many knick-knacks, some 
of which seemed of value. Keith noticed an en- 
graving on the wall that looked to him very like a 
Meryon, though he was not sure. On a small table 
stood a Japanese vase, in it flowers that were dead 
from lack of water. Music was open on the piano; 
books and current magazines lay about, one face 
downwards on a chair as though some one read- 
ing it had put it down for a moment meaning to 
pick it up again at once. On one chair was an 
illustrated paper; on another some fancy work, the 
needle, threaded with yellow silk, still sticking in it 
as though it, too, had only been laid aside momen- 
tarily. Across the small hall was the dining-room 
where the table was spread for a meal, breakfast 
apparently, since there was toast and marmalade, 
cold ham, and an open box of sardines, and under a 
cosy a silver coffee pot of which the contents had 
long been cold. Places were laid for two people, 
but the meal, though ready, had not been begun, 
for the plates and cups were all quite clean. 

More and more puzzled Keith went back into the 
hall and shouted up the stairs: 

‘‘Is there any one there?” 

No answer came, and after a moment’s hesita- 
tion he went back into the dining-room. The bread 


The Deserted Home 23 


on the table was stale but quite eatable. There 
was butter, too, and the cold ham, though dry on 
the outside, had an appetizing appearance. 
Keith’s hunger had seemed to slacken as he made 
these investigations, but now it returned with 
pangs keener even than before. Indeed he was 
nearly starving, for he had eaten nothing at all 
for twenty-four hours, and for the three days pre- 
viously hardly as much as would have made him 
one good meal in former days. He broke off a 
piece of bread and put it in his mouth, and a bit 
of ham followed; before he was well aware what 
he was doing he was sitting at the table making a 
hearty meal. 

He ate quickly, fiercely, almost recklessly, and 
when the thought came to him that perhaps the 
occupants of the house would return and find him 
busy with their food, sitting a,t their table, he told 
himself he did not care; all that mattered was his 
hunger and the chance that had come to satisfy it. 

When at last he had had enough he got up and 
went back into the hall. He felt physically a 
great deal better and stronger for his meal, but his 
mood was reckless and angry, for he supposed that 
now he would be considered guilty of both house- 
breaking and theft, and was liable to heavy pun- 
ishment — penal servitude, perhaps, for all he knew. 
And it seemed to him unjust that only thus had he 


24 The Solitary House 


been able to still the hunger that had tormented 
him. 

“I suppose I had better see what’s in the rest of 
the place,” he said to himself, and went upstairs. 

It was nearly dark now, and heavy shadows lay 
in all the comers and on the landing at the head 
of the stairs. Opposite to him were two doors. 
He opened one and found himself in a bedroom that 
by the evidence of the articles on the toilet table and 
of some clothing lying about had been occupied by 
a woman. The bed was not made, and evidently 
the room had not been tidied since it was last used. 
Opening the other door he went into the next room. 
This was quite tidy and had obviously not been used 
for some time; presumably it was the spare room. 
There were two other rooms at the back: one used 
as a box-room, for it had no furniture and con- 
tained a good deal of miscellaneous lumber, and 
the other apparently intended for the use of a serv- 
ant. Here also the bed was unmade, and various 
objects were littered about as though left by some 
one who had every intention of returning very 
shortly. There was also a bath-room, and here 
Keith noticed a shaving brush and soap and a silver 
shaving mirror, so that evidently there had been a 
man about. 

He went back into the bedroom and looked in 
the wardrobe and in the drawers and found there 


The Deserted Home 25 


was plenty of men’s clothing including boots and 
slippers at the bottom of a cupboard. Presumably, 
therefore, the lady had been married, and this was 
the room shared by her and her husband, but as all 
the masculine clothing was somewhat carefully put 
away and none lying about, he had probably not 
been staying in the house just recently. Keith also 
found a case of razors in one of the drawers, and 
it was this that first put it into his head to reflect 
that he was very dirty and had not had a bath or a 
shave for a long time. 

He began to rummage about and had soon col- 
lected a complete outfit of underclothing as well as 
a light tweed suit that seemed to fit him very well. 

“May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb,” he 
said to himself recklessly, and he went down to the 
scullery and filled the lamps of the oil stove from a 
gallon tin of oil that was standing near. He 
trimmed the wicks and soon had the stove going and 
some water on to heat. As soon as it boiled he took 
a jugful up to the bath-room and treated himself to 
the luxury of a shave, and afterwards he heated 
more water and had a bath and changed his own 
filthy rags for the clothing he had got ready. 

Bathed, shaved, respectably dressed, he was 
changed as if by magical transformation from the 
desperate looking ruffian of an hour or two earlier 
into as goodly a youth as any one could wish to see, 


26 T he Solitary House 


and he needed but one thing to make his content 
complete. A short search in the dining-room pro- 
vided it, for in the sideboard was a box of cigars, 
and he helped himself to one and lighted it and 
began to smoke. 

“I suppose I am a burglar,” he thought, “but 
anyhow this is a jolly sight better than dossing out 
under the trees, wet through with dew and twisted 
up with hunger. Who cares?” 

His mood was indeed perfectly reckless. Life 
he considered, not perhaps with so complete a jus- 
tification as he assumed, had treated him harshly 
and unfairly, and he told himself he had a right to 
take the good that came his way. 

“A jolly fool I should have been,” he thought, 
“to clear off and sleep out under a tree when there 
was food and shelter and clothing lying wasting 
here with no one to use them.” 

He enjoyed that cigar as only one who has been 
long deprived of tobacco can enjoy a good smoke, 
and he had finished it and was wondering whether 
to help himself to another when quite suddenly 
there came a knocking at the front door, a sharp, 
quick, hurried knock that went echoing and sound- 
ing through the whole house. 


CHAPTER III 
A Visitor 

He laid down the cigar box he had been fingering 
doubtfully, and he listened quietly and without 
moving. The knock was repeated, quick and im- 
perative, and Keith rose slowly to his feet. 

“Now to face the music,” he said to himself, and 
he went quickly out of the room and across the hall 
to the front door and opened it. 

On the threshold was standing a tall, slim girl 
with dark eyes and a grave and pale face. Her 
features were thin and not very regular, the nose 
being a little too prominent, the mouth a little too 
large. The cheek bones were a little high, too, and 
indeed she might have been called plain but for the 
fineness of the clear, smooth skin, the depth and 
beauty of the dark eyes and the perfection of the 
broad, serene forehead from which the hair was 
brushed back tightly beneath a small closely-fitting 
felt hat. She held herself very upright, with a cer- 
tain suggestion of pliant vigour, and Keith noticed 
27 


28 The Solitary House 


that her limbs were long and her hands and feet 
by no means specially small. She had ridden up 
on a bicycle, for she had her hand on one she had 
just placed to lean against the side of the house, and 
though she looked very intently and searchingly at 
Keith she did not speak. 

He did not speak, either, but stood quietly, wait- 
ing for her to begin, and the pause allowed him to 
notice every detail of her appearance. He felt, 
too, that she on her part was watching him closely 
from those great dark eyes, and that this intent gaze 
of hers was hostile and even contemptuous. He 
wondered if she knew who he was and how he had 
come there, and he felt his temper beginning to rise 
under the slow scorn of her watchful gaze. 

There was, however, in this enmity her manner 
seemed to show, no suggestion of fear or doubt or 
suspicion; it was rather as though he were some 
one whom she knew well and utterly despised. But 
then it seemed quite impossible that she should 
really know him, and it occurred to him at once that 
most likely she was taking him for some one else, 
presumably the rightful tenant of the house whose 
food he had eaten and whose clothes he was wear- 
ing. But then if the girl were really under such an 
impression it followed that she could never have 
seen this unknown tenant, and why, therefore, 
should she appear so hostile towards him? Keith, 


A Visitor 


29 


through whose mind all these considerations flashed 
like lightning, determined to be careful and cau- 
tious in what he said, and to endeavour, if possible, 
to find out what the girl knew or believed about 
him without in any way betraying himself. 

“I have come to see my sister,” she said sud- 
denly and abruptly, her voice quiet and low and yet 
singularly clear. 

“Yes,” he answered hesitatingly. “Yes. She 
lives here?” 

For some reason his words seemed to fan to sud- 
den flame the smouldering fires of her wrath. 

“How dare you?” she cried, and she lifted her 
hands so that for the moment he believed she was 
about to strike him. But the gesture was only one 
of passionate indignation, and she said again: 
“How dare you? oh, how dare you?” 

“But I assure you,” he began and paused and 
felt himself flush red, so fierce and scorching was 
the indignation in her angry eyes. 

“Do you suppose,” she said bitterly, “that what- 
ever you assure me, I should ever believe one word 
you say?” 

“Well, if you don’t,” he remarked, “it doesn’t 
seem much use my saying anything, does it?” 

“Do you think you have any reason to expect me 
to believe you?” she demanded. 

He hesitated, reflecting that after all, since the 


30 The Solitary House 


very clothes on his back were not his own, he had 
perhaps no right to reply in the affirmative. 

“I insist on seeing my sister,” she said, and 
swept past him with a movement into the hall. 

He drew back with a slight bow, and she went 
into the drawing-room of which the door he had left 
open was on her right. She gave a glance round to 
assure herself no one was there, and then came out 
and went into the dining-room. He followed her, 
and she, after one quick look round, went out again 
without noticing him, while he busied himself light- 
ing the tall brass lamp that stood in one comer of 
the room. He drew the curtains, too, and while he 
did so heard her light firm footsteps overhead as 
she went swiftly into one room after another. 
When he had drawn the blinds he sat down in the 
comfortable arm-chair he had been occupying, when 
her knock disturbed him, and soon he heard her 
coming downstairs again. She came to the door 
of the room and stood there in the flooding lamp- 
light, and her face was more pale, her eyes more 
large and bright, even than before. 

“She is not here,” she said; “where is she?” 

“I don’t know,” he answered, after a pause for 
reflection. 

“Liar,” she answered, very slowly and distinctly. 

He went very red, for even a tramp, even a reck- 
less housebreaker does not like to be called a liar 


A Visitor 


31 


by a woman, nor to be addressed in tones of such 
vivid and intense scorn. He half rose from his 
chair and sat down again. 

“Of course,” he said, “if you were a man I 
should throw you out of the house for that. As you 
are a woman I can only repeat that I do not know.” 

“It is a lie,” she repeated. 

“Oh, well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, 
“you gave me fair warning you would not believe 
a word I said.” 

“Where is she?” she repeated, and she came a 
little nearer and stood slim and upright above him, 
her head thrown back, one hand held out, like a 
young goddess threatening to unloose the powers of 
her wrath. 

“What is the use of my saying anything if you 
won’t believe a word I do say?” he asked. 

She did not reply, but stood looking down at him, 
and he felt a certain discomfort grow and increase 
in him beneath the scrutiny of those clear searching 
eyes. They seemed to know ; and he felt it to be 
true that he was not treating her quite fairly since 
plainly she took him for some one else, probably the 
rightful tenant of the house. But he did not see 
that he could explain the truth to her. For one 
thing she would very likely refuse to believe a story 
that would sound to her a little fantastic perhaps; 
and besides he did not feel too much inclined to 


32 The Solitary House 


make the experiment. The bitterness of her man- 
ner, the contempt apparent in her every word and 
look, had very distinctly ruffled his temper, even 
although he realized that her hostility was really 
aimed at some one else. Still he had had to bear 
the brunt of it, and he had not found that pleasant 
— nor pleasant to feel that if she knew the truth 
and what an awful intruder he was here, her scorn 
of him would probably grow greater and increase. 

Quite suddenly she said: 

“Do you mean she has gone home?” 

“Well, do you know,” he answered reflectively, 
“I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if that weren’t it.” 

She found both his tone and manner unsatis- 
factory and seemed to hesitate, as though doubtful 
and suspicious and yet in part, at least, inclined to 
believe him. She did not speak nor did he, and as 
they watched each other silently they both heard 
distinctly a sound in the room above, a sound that 
was exactly like the very cautious opening and shut- 
ting of a window. The girl swung round quickly. 

“Oh, she’s there all the time,” she cried, and was 
out of the room like a flash. 

Keith sat still and listened to her light steps flying 
up the stairs. He heard her fling open the door of 
the bedroom and run in — and the next moment her 
voice shrilled out in a loud and fearful cry like that 
of a soul parting in agony. 


A Visitor 


33 


He sprang from his seat, dashed up the stairs 
three or four at a time, and flung himself across the 
landing into the room. It was empty save for the 
girl herself, who lay still and unconscious on the 
floor in the middle of the room, nor was there any- 
thing at all to tell what had happened or what had 
alarmed her so. He look all round quickly, and 
then ran to the window and looked out. There was 
nothing, nothing at all, to account for that awful 
scream of terror, and he turned back to the uncon- 
scious figure of the girl, prone upon the carpet. He 
turned her on her back. She was quite uncon- 
scious, but did not seem to be hurt in any way, and 
when he got some water from the bathroom and 
splashed a few drops on her face — he did not know 
what else to do — she began to show signs of re- 
covery. 

With a low sigh she opened her eyes and looked 
round, and at once put her hands before them as if 
to shut out some awful sight. 

“What was it?” she muttered hoarsely; “what 
was it?” 

“Are you better now?” he asked, kneeling be- 
side her. “Drink some of this.” 

He offered her some water, and she supped a lit- 
tle and then pushed it from her and got unsteadily 
to her feet. 

“What happened?” he asked; “what was it?” 


34 The Solitary House 


“You know,” she said shakenly; “you know — 
don’t you?” 

“No,” he answered. “I don’t really; I haven’t 
the least idea. I heard you cry out and I rushed 
up and there was nothing at all. What was it?” 

“I don’t know,” she said; “I don’t know.” 

“You must know what made you cry out like 
that,” he insisted, vexed, for he saw that she dis- 
trusted him. 

She made no answer, and it was evident more 
than half believed that he was responsible for what- 
ever had happened. And that something had oc- 
curred to frighten her very badly was plain from 
her ashen face and trembling limbs. 

“Look here,” he said with an impulse to try to 
explain the truth to her, “you are making a great 
mistake. I am not what you think; I ” 

“You think you can talk me over as you talked 
her over, I suppose?” she interrupted wearily; “but 
I don’t want to know anything at all except where 
my sister is. When you have told so many lies, 
why should you expect me to believe you now?” 

Without waiting for an answer she turned and 
went unsteadily out of the room and down the stairs. 
He followed and found her preparing to start off on 
her bicycle. But she was plainly not fit to go alone, 
for she was trembling violently and her hands were 


A Visitor 35 

shaking so that she could hardly hold the bicycle 
upright. 

“You had better wait a bit,” he said to her. 
“And I wish you would tell me what made you cry 
out like that?” 

“I expect you know,” she answered moodily. 

“Well, I don’t,” he insisted. “Why not tell me? 
What was it?” 

“I don’t know,” she answered again, and once 
more she shivered. 

He made an impatient movement, angry at what 
he thought her obstinacy, and turned back to the 
house. But once more he turned to her. 

“You aren’t fit to go like that,” he said. 
“Won’t you wait a little, or shall I come with you?” 

“No,” she flashed, her spirit greater than her 
fears; “no, I would rather — see — that again than 
have you with me.” 

“All right,” he said sulkily. 

She mounted her bicycle and rode away down the 
hill to the road. He could still see her in the pale 
twilight till she reached the road, but then she at 
once vanished from sight, and he stood for a few 
minutes leaning against the door post. 

“A regular little spitfire, a little Tartar,” he said 
to himself, “but I wonder what it all means, and 
what on earth scared her so badly up there? It’s 


36 The Solitary House 

all jolly rummy, and I would give a good deal to 
know what made her faint like that.” 

He turned and was in the act of entering the house 
when, as he stepped into the hall, a cheery voice 
hailed him from without: 

“Oh, good evening, good evening,” it said, “good 
evening, Mr. Wentworth.” 


CHAPTER IV 


The Vicar 

The effect was so startling that had not his nerves 
been under good control he would have screamed 
out nearly as loudly as had done his late visitor at 
whatever had frightened her in the room above. 

By a supreme effort he controlled himself and 
turned quietly and leisurely round. 

“Yes . . . who is it?” he asked. 

A small rotund figure came out of the dim night 
and stood on the threshold where the beam of yel- 
low light fell from the lamp within. 

“Really, I must apologize for such an extremely 
late visit,” said the stranger, “but the fact is I was 
just passing and I saw your light, and I have been 
meaning all week to get over to call, so when I saw 
Mrs. Wentworth pass on her bicycle — it was Mrs. 
Wentworth, was it not?” 

“Oh, yes,” answered Keith slowly, “yes, it would 
be her, I expect.” 

“I thought so, though I could not be quite certain 
in the darkness,” continued the stranger. “A great 
acquisition to our parish, if I may say so. I am 
37 


38 The Solitary House 


only sorry you are in such a very out-of-the-way 
part of it. Mrs. Morgan is hoping to get over to 
call, but she finds it a little difficult as it is too far 
to walk; she doesn’t cycle; and a conveyance is not 
at all easy to arrange for; so when I saw your light 
I thought to myself that here was an opportunity 
for me to look in and introduce myself.” 

He paused and beamed cheerfully on his host, 
and Keith smiled back nearly as cheerfully, im- 
mensely relieved to gather from this that the per- 
sonality of the real Mr. Wentworth was unknown 
to this new-comer who, from what he said, was evi- 
dently a Mr. Morgan and the vicar of the parish. 

“I am sure it was most good of you to come,” he 
said genially; “won’t you come in a minute?” 

The vicar thanked him profusely, objected on the 
score of the lateness of the hour, but yielded finally 
to a renewed invitation and followed into the draw- 
ing-room, where Keith lit the lamp and drew the 
curtains while his new visitor established himself in 
a comfortable chair and accepted with many thanks 
a cigar from the box Keith offered him. 

“Very kind of you, very kind indeed,” he purred. 
“I hope Mrs. Wentworth permits smoking in her 
drawing-room?” 

“Oh, yes, I don’t think she objects at all,” an- 
swered Keith airily, thinking there was much else 
she would object to more just at this moment. 


The Vicar 


39 


He took a seat opposite his visitor and helped 
himself to a fresh cigar. With a kind of grim inner 
amusement he reflected that they must present a 
very comfortable and intimate picture, and he won- 
dered what would happen if the real Mr. Went- 
worth — since that was evidently the name of the 
rightful occupant of the house — should return un- 
expectedly. But his mood was wild and reckless; 
he even told himself that possession is nine-tenths of 
the law, and that if the genuine Wentworth did 
appear he would face the situation out, refuse to 
admit the other’s identity, and order him off. 

“Let him sleep out under the trees for once,” he 
thought; “it won’t do the chap any harm; and I feel 
like a good bed for once — lord, if he comes I’ll 
give him the surprise of his life and bluff him till he 
won’t know which of us is really which.” 

The jest of it appealed to him strongly in his 
present reckless mood, and his eyes shone with mis- 
chief and laughter at the prospect. And evidently 
not the faintest suspicion had as yet entered the 
mind of his present visitor, who leaning back in 
his easy chair, smoking the excellent cigar Keith 
had given him, and keeping up a constant stream of 
cheerful gossip about the parish and its inhabitants, 
seemed very comfortable indeed. 

“I can assure you,” he said, “that I cycle a good 
many hundred miles a year in the course of my^ 


40 The Solitary House 

duties — thousands I might say indeed. It is a 
very widely scattered parish, especially this end of 
it, which is I suppose the loneliest, wildest district 
in the county; in the whole of this part of England 
indeed. Possibly that is an attraction in your eyes, 
though, Mr. Wentworth?” 

“Upon my word, I don’t know but that it is,” 
Keith agreed. 

“Are you expecting to stay long?” Mr. Morgan 
inquired. 

“I hardly know; my plans are not very settled 
yet,” answered Keith cautiously. 

“I see, I see,” smiled Mr. Morgan. “And how 
does Mrs. Wentworth like it here? — very well, I 
hope?” 

“I think,” answered Keith, “I think I may say 
she is charmed. I am afraid,” he added, “I shall 
have to ask you to excuse her tonight; I rather 
think she has begun her preparations for retiring.” 

Mr. Morgan seemed to take this as a hint to be 
off, for he rose almost at once, declaring he must 
go. Keith tried to persuade him to stay, but he 
insisted on going and began to apologize again for 
putting in an appearance so late. 

“Though really,” he repeated, “the parish is so 
large, and I find it so difficult to cover it all, that 
when I saw your light as I was riding through 
File’s Wood ” 


The Vicar 


41 


“You came through the wood?” Keith inter- 
rupted. 

“Yes, it saves a short distance,” answered Mr. 
Morgan and smiled. “And I make it a point of 
honour to show how little I care for the stories 
about the place,” he added. 

“Oh, yes, the stories,” said Keith. “I wish you 
would tell me what they are exactly. I have heard 
all sorts of hints, but nothing definite.” 

“Well, of course, there are all sorts of tales,” 
answered Mr. Morgan. “I discourage them as 
much as I can, but I suppose they are really very 
ancient, and there seems to be quite good authority 
for supposing that Files Wood is a corruption of 
Fiend’s Wood.” 

“Indeed,” said Keith, “that’s interesting.” 

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Morgan, “the idea that the 
Devil, in propria person , walks in the wood seems 
to have come down from very early times, and of 
late for some reason or another there has been 
quite a revival of the stories. Mrs. Wilson — but 
Mrs. Wilson is not so sober as she might be, I fear, 
though undoubtedly there have been some very 
strange and still unexplained cases of disappear- 
ance in this neighbourhood.” 

“Disappearance?” repeated Keith, starting in 
spite of himself. 

“Yes,” answered Mr. Morgan; “and naturally 


42 The Solitary House 

when that does happen, it is at once believed that 
the missing person has met the Fiend walking in 
the wood and been carried off by him.” 

“What an idea,” said Keith, and laughed, though 
not quite naturally, for he could not help remem- 
bering how strangely the inhabitants of this house 
appeared to have vanished. 

“Oh, I assure you it’s widely believed,” declared 
Mr. Morgan, “and so I make a point whenever I 
can of cycling through the wood. But the worst 
of it is that when I tell my good parishioners what 
I’ve done, and that I neither saw nor heard any- 
thing out of the way, they only shake their heads 
and hint that it’s safe enough for me — he would 
never venture to show himself to me. A compli- 
ment to my cloth, I suppose.” 

He laughed cheerfully and presently cycled off, 
and when he had gone Keith bolted and locked the 
front door very carefully, noticing as he did so that 
the fastenings seemed new and of unusual strength. 
He would not admit it even to himself, but cer- 
tainly he was more glad than before that he was 
not going to pass the night in the open under the 
trees of File’s Wood that once had been named 
Fiend’s Wood. He went into the drawing-room 
and secured the windows with equal care, noticing 
that here, too, the fastenings seemed new and un- 
usually secure, and that the outside shutters pro- 


The Vicar 


43 


vided were very strong. This was in fact the case 
all over the house ; everywhere pains seemed to have 
been taken to provide complete security against any 
intrusion from without; it was almost as though 
some attack or assault had been feared and had 
been provided against. Even the back door, in ad- 
dition to two strong bolts, was provided with a stout 
iron bar that went right across it. Lamp in hand 
Keith went into each room in turn, making all se- 
cure for the night and assuring himself, though a 
little ashamed of the precaution, that no one and 
nothing was in hiding anywhere. He found a 
door he had overlooked before that apparently led 
down to the cellar, and this also he made secure 
with the fastenings provided, telling himself as he 
did so that it was too late to bother tonight seeing 
what was down there. As an additional safeguard 
he placed a chair against it, and when he had thus 
made all the ground floor safe against any possible 
intrusion he went back to the drawing-room, and as 
he put down his lamp on the table in the centre 
he heard distinctly the sound of a soft and cau- 
tious footstep overhead. 

For a moment he hesitated; he was as brave as 
most men; but there was something in that soft, 
padding sound that seemed to grip his heart with 
sudden terror and make his mouth go dry. Then 
he snatched the lamp and ran quickly upstairs and 


44 The So lit a r y Ho use 


went hurriedly into each one of the rooms and 
searched them thoroughly, absurdly thoroughly in- 
deed, for he looked under beds, in cupboards, even 
into drawers that by no possibility could have 
served as places of concealment. He found not 
the least trace or sign of anything to account for 
what he had heard, and he told himself that in all 
probability it was only a trick of his imagination, 
some such noise as houses are always full of and 
that his nerves had translated into the sound of a 
footstep. 

The explanation did not satisfy him in the least, 
but when he had made all the windows fast up here, 
too, and secured the shutters they were all pro- 
vided with, he told himself he was at all events very 
sure that he was the only person under that roof 
and that no one could possibly obtain admittance 
without his knowledge. 

Satisfied of that, he went into the bedroom and 
found a suit of pyjamas, for he was minded to take 
full advantage of the gifts the gods had strewn in 
his way and to spend one comfortable night at 
least. The bed in the spare room was fully made, 
and doubts as to whether it was aired did not occur 
to him. He decided to sleep in this room rather 
than in the other, and very soon he was undressed 
and in bed. 


A Visitor 


45 


But the novelty of his position prevented him 
from sleeping, and his half -conscious, guilty ex- 
pectation of the arrival of the rightful tenants also 
served to make him restless. For long he lay 
awake, straining his nerves at every tiniest sound, 
and going over and over again in his mind the 
events of this strange night. 

For what reason, he wondered, had the occu- 
pants of the house quitted it so abruptly and with 
every sign of extreme haste so that they had stayed 
neither to eat the meal they had prepared nor even 
to bar door and window against intruders. 

Was it panic that had driven them away like that, 
or what? 

Certainly .it must have been something very press- 
ing indeed, strangely pressing. 

It ran in his mind that Mr. Morgan had said that 
there had been several cases of mysterious disap- 
pearance in that neighbourhood. 

And why, he wondered, were all doors and win- 
dows provided with such strong fastenings? Had 
the occupants of the house known of some danger 
threatening them? and if so, did it come from that 
oddly named wood where he himself had been 
aware of such curious sensations? 

And then that girl who had visited him, asking 
for her sister? Who was she, and who was her 


46 The Solitar y House 

sister, and what had frightened her so terribly and 
so strangely that she either could not or would not 
say what it was? 

He found a clear vision of her face as she had 
looked when she rode away come very vividly be- 
fore his eyes; it was there when at last, tired out, 
he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep from which 
he wakened with a cry and a sharp pain at his 
throat, where a horrible pressure was squeezing the 
life from him. He heard himself give a muffled 
gurgling cry and instinctively he tore at the devilish 
clasp about his neck; by a violent and supreme 
effort he jerked himself sideways and felt the fin- 
gers at his throat slacken and loosen their grip. 
He struck out wildly, fiercely, in the darkness, but 
there was nothing there, and he heard the door of 
his room close gently and softly as though some one 
had just gone very quietly out ... or else come 
in. 


CHAPTER V 


The Hidden Store 

For a little Keith remained crouching by the 
bed, panting and breathless, half anticipating a 
new attack. But all was very still and quiet in 
the darkness, and he heard no sound or movement 
anywhere, either in the room or without. 

Cautiously he put out his hand and groped for 
the matches he knew he had left near. He found 
them and struck one and looked round slowly and 
expectantly. The room was empty, the door was 
shut, all was as it had been before, only the tumbled 
condition of the bed suggested that anything un- 
usual had happened. He might almost have 
thought it had merely been a bad dream of which 
he had been the victim, but his throat still hurt 
him, and when he looked at himself in the glass he 
saw that it was bruised and swollen and that it 
showed the black traces of encircling fingers. 

“Who — what — can it have been?” he muttered. 

He felt very cold, and yet he was perspiring 
freely, and he pulled on his coat and trousers and 
47 


48 The Solitary House 

thrust his feet into his slippers. He struck an- 
other match and glanced round for something to 
serve as a weapon, but could see nothing; even the 
chairs were of too slight a make to be of any use. 
The lamp he had brought upstairs with him the 
night before was on the dressing-table and he 
lighted it, and then thought that if he took it with 
him it might betray him to a lurking enemy, and 
so blew it out again. He crossed on tiptoe to 
the door and opened it with extreme caution, and 
for a long time he remained crouching on the 
threshold, listening and waiting, intent for the 
faintest indication of the presence of his assailant. 

Out here on the landing the darkness was much 
deeper than it had been in the bedroom, where he 
had had the blind up and the window open. Here 
the only faint glimmer of light came through the 
closed skylight through which a far, bright star 
was visible, and this glimmer was so faint and 
weak it seemed to serve only to make the darkness 
more intense. 

As he crouched there in the dark Keith felt his 
courage returning, his nerves growing firm again. 
He had been a good deal shaken by the sudden and 
mysterious attack made upon him in his profound 
slumber, but now the effect of it was beginning to 
pass away and he told himself grimly that if he 
could lay hands on his unknown assailant he 


The Hidden Store 


49 


would show him the difference between attacking 
a man in his sleep and meeting one awake and 
prepared. 

He had expected that some sound, some move- 
ment, would tell him where his adversary was, but 
the perfect stillness of the night was broken by no 
sound. It occurred to him that it might be better 
to wait for daylight, but the anger steadily rising 
in him at the attack he had been subjected to over- 
bore such prudent counsels. He straightened him- 
self from the position in which he had been crouch- 
ing, and very carefully and cautiously, and yet 
with a certain light swiftness of movement, he 
set himself to the task of finding his enemy who 
must, he was convinced, be hiding somewhere in 
the house. First of all he locked each room in 
turn on the outside and then, after looking in the 
cupboard at the head of the stairs lest any one 
should be hiding there and finding it full only of 
clothes, he unlocked each room in turn and 
searched each one thoroughly, locking each one 
again behind him as he left it. When he had done 
this with all the rooms in turn and made sure there 
was no one lurking in any of them, he went down- 
stairs to the ground floor and searched the rooms 
there in the same way, as carefully and systematic- 
ally, making sure by locking each one behind him 
and pocketing the key that his unknown enemy wa9 


50 The Solitary House 

not avoiding him in the darkness or slipping from 
one hiding place to another. 

It was a strange and weird experience, trying 
to the nerves and to the courage, to search thus 
room after room in the dark night, with no light 
save the glimmer from the matches he struck some- 
times, tensely ready for a rush from any comer, 
for an attack at any moment, expecting each second 
to find himself locked in a wild fight for life. It 
was a long process, too, for he was so certain he 
must come upon his adversary sooner or later, since 
escape seemed to him impossible, that he often 
crouched and waited or stood breathless in dark 
shadows, straining to hear some sound to tell him 
where the other lurked. Whoever this other might 
be he seemed cunning and subtle beyond the com- 
mon, and Keith felt that unless he used every pre- 
caution and every care he would find himself at- 
tacked at a disadvantage that might easily be fatal. 

The dawn was near, the darkness less heavy than 
it had been, when at last his task was completed, 
the house searched from top to bottom, and he 
himself convinced that beneath that roof he was 
the only living creature. Bewildered, and with 
fear growing on him again, he stood chilled to the 
bone in the chill, bare kitchen, and asked himself 
wonderingly by what possibility, by what trick or 
secret means, his enemy had escaped. 


The Hidden Store 


51 


Now, too, he looked and found that every one of 
the fastenings with which so carefully he had 
secured doors and windows the night before was 
still intact, and when he had assured himself of 
this fact he could not help the little thrill of super- 
stitious awe that ran through him, or check entirely 
an inclination to glance quickly over his shoulder 
lest unseen there should be standing there some 
awful and threatening apparition. 

He went quickly to the dining-room. A tantalus 
was on the sideboard, but as he had not the key he 
had not touched it the night before, since he did 
not wish to cause any needless damage. But now, 
thinking that when one had been nearly murdered 
in a house one acquires certain rights and privi- 
leges in it, he smashed the lock with a coal hammer 
he had picked up in the kitchen to serve as a weapon 
if necessary, and helped himself to a good stiff 
glass of whiskey and soda. Taking the coal ham- 
mer with him, and feeling a good deal better for 
his drink, he went back to the room where he 
had been sleeping and locking the door, and fur- 
ther securing it with a chair he put against it at 
an angle under the handle, he lay down on the 
bed. 

But, in spite of his fatigue, it was broad day be- 
fore he fell asleep, and then it was a troubled and 
uneasy slumber that came to him. Once at least 


52 The Solitary House 

he started up, bathed in perspiration, and with the 
impression that again he was experiencing that 
deadly and fatal grip upon his throat. And once 
he thought he heard a slow padding step outside 
his door, but he lay still and did not move, and 
the sound was not repeated. 

He slept soundly at last, and when he woke it 
was quite late. He dressed and went downstairs 
very cautiously, his coal hammer in his hand, ready 
for any attack that might be made on him. But 
all was quiet and still, each room was empty, and 
when he threw back the shutters and let in the 
fresh morning air and the bright sunshine he began 
to feel even a little ashamed of his fears and terrors 
of the night. 

The idea even came to him that perhaps he had 
only suffered from a bad nightmare. 

But the marks upon his throat were still there, 
and he made certain once again that on the doors 
and windows the fastenings he had secured the 
night before had not been tampered with. 

How, then, his mysterious assailant had entered 
and left the house he could not conceive, and he 
could not help remembering that the wood near by 
had once been called Fiend’s Wood, and reflecting 
that his predecessors in the occupation of this 
house had apparently vanished in a very sudden 
and inexplicable manner. 


The Hidden Store 


53 


“And then,” he mused, “what can it have been 
that scared that girl so badly in the bedroom up- 
stairs last night?” 

His experience of the night suggested that her 
terror had not been without some substantial 
foundation. 

He opened the back door and went out to see if 
he could find anything outside to throw any light 
on the mystery. But he found no footprints, nor 
indeed any marks of any kind in any way unusual 
or suspicious, though he did find a tin containing 
a quart of new milk and half a dozen eggs on the 
sill of the kitchen window. 

He supposed that they had come from a local 
farm from which they had been ordered, and had 
been left early in the morning by some one who 
had been told not to disturb the inmates of the 
house. He took the eggs and boiled two of them 
on the oil stove, making with the help of the cold 
ham a very good breakfast in spite of his disturbed 
night. Then he helped himself without scruple, 
on his theory that having been nearly murdered 
in the house he had acquired certain rights in it, to 
a cigar from the box in the dining-room, and began 
to make a new and more systematic examination 
of his abode. 

He found nothing of any great interest and noth- 
ing at all to throw any light on the many points 


54 The Solitary H ouse 


that were puzzling him so profoundly. There were 
no letters and few papers of any sort, though he 
came across the name 64 Wentworth” once or twice. 
In the cellar he found a good supply of potatoes 
and a barrel of paraffin oil, so that there was plenty 
of fuel for his little stove. The pantry, too, was 
well stocked with provisions, including a quantity 
of tinned stuff, meat and fruit and sardines, a small 
sack of flour, and a side of bacon. There was 
enough, he thought, for two or three weeks, or 
even more; and besides there seemed to be a good 
deal of fruit and vegetables growing in the garden, 
so that no shortage of food was likely for as long 
as there was any probability of his staying there. 

Before he went down into the cellar he took the 
precaution of screwing back the door lest his un- 
known and illusive enemy should come upon him 
suddenly and make him a prisoner by shutting and 
fastening it upon him. But no such attempt was 
made, he heard and saw nothing of any other liv- 
ing creature, and no one came near the place; he 
did not even see any one pass along the road at 
the bottom of the hill on which the house stood. 

Another thing he did in the cellar was to sound 
the floor of it carefully and to pour water on one 
or two spots to assure himself that the brick floor 
had not recently been disturbed. For the grim 
thought was in his mind that had the attack on 


The Hidden Store 


55 


him the previous night succeeded his body would 
have had to be concealed somewhere, and possibly 
— just possibly — if some such fate as that he had 
so narrowly escaped had overtaken the vanished 
tenants of the place, their bodies might have been 
hidden under the flooring of the cellar. With the 
same idea in his mind he examined the flooring of 
each room and, finding a long flue brush in a cup- 
board under the stairs, he pushed it up the chim- 
neys in case anything had been hidden there. 

He discovered nothing, however, and all this had 
taken him so long that he was getting hungry again. 
So he stopped to cook himself some dinner and 
cleared up afterwards, and then, having comforted 
himself with a fresh cigar, he resumed his search 
upstairs. 

In the principal bedroom he found little of in- 
terest, though in a small drawer of the dressing- 
table he came upon some money, about fifteen 
pounds, an additional proof of the extreme haste 
with which the place had been abandoned. There 
was also a small, cheap revolver which was un- 
loaded and out of order, and a good deal of some- 
what expensive-looking clothing. 

Indeed, so far as he could judge, everything in 
the house was of very good quality, as though there 
had been no lack of money on the part of its former 
occupants. Besides the Meryon, there were one 


56 The Solitary House 

or two oilier engravings in the drawing-room that 
looked good. And there was an ivory paper knife 
mounted in gold, two or three of the photograph 
frames were of solid silver, some of the china 
looked good, and in the sideboard there was a 
“canteen” as the shopkeepers call them, a solid 
mahogany case containing knives, spoons, and 
forks, the knives with ivory handles and the spoons 
and forks of solid silver. The thing must have 
cost at least fifty pounds. In the bedroom, too, 
there were a good many small objects of value, and 
in a case on the dressing-table some jewellery, a 
brooch, two or three rings, and a bracelet, and one 
or two other things that appeared to be worth a 
little money. Keith was inclined to suppose that 
the contents of the house must be worth at least a 
thousand pounds and perhaps more. 

He searched the three bedrooms as carefully as 
he had done the downstairs rooms without finding 
anything of importance. He lifted the carpets and 
examined the chimney in each room, and then 
went into the boxroom where there was the usual 
sort of miscellaneous collection characteristic of 
such places. One specially big packing case con- 
tained a number of old papers and books and maga- 
zines, and his examination was so close and care- 
ful he thought it worth while to take these out and 
glance through them and move the case that had 


The Hidden Store 


57 


held them. In doing so he noticed that one board 
of the bare floor, just where this case had stood, 
was fastened down with nails whose heads seemed 
a little new, and when he looked more closely he 
saw, too, that one side of this board was a little 
marked and broken as though it had recently been 
lifted. 

The marks were very slight; at any other time 
he would never have noticed them; but now he was 
keyed up to an unusual pitch of keenness. He 
had a hammer and screw-driver he had found in 
the kitchen, and he set to work and by their aid he 
unfastened and lifted the board. 

In the cavity beneath, between the floor of this 
room and the ceiling of that beneath, there was one 
of those flat cane dispatch-boxes which of recent 
years have grown popular. He drew it out, really 
excited, for it seemed to him he had found some- 
thing at last. It was locked, but he forced the 
hasp with his screw-driver and threw back the lid, 
exposing a tumbled mass of shining jewellery, 
sparkling and glittering wonderfully in the bright 
sunshine that streamed in by the open window. 


CHAPTER VI 


Temptation 

His first impulse was to spring to his feet and 
lock the door of the room that he might be secure 
against any interruption — he and his new-found 
treasure. 

Next, slowly and carefully, he took out the shin- 
ing contents of the dispatch-case and arranged the 
pretty things in glittering, sparkling rows upon 
the floor; and when he had finished that plain 
ordinary little lumber room seemed changed into 
a king’s treasure chamber. 

There was one great diamond necklace made of 
three and thirty wonderful stones, and another 
necklace of lovely pearls perfectly matched. 
There was bracelet upon bracelet mounted with 
precious stones. There were many rings, too, and 
brooches, and a great store of about a gross of 
wedding rings, all of pure gold. And there were 
brooches and gold chains, and tiaras, and many 
other trinkets, till as they lay there where he had 
placed them upon the floor it seemed to Keith that 
they outshone in splendour even the sun itself. 

$8 


T emptation 


59 


His face was flushed, his eyes were very bright 
and eager, his hands trembled as he put them nerv- 
ously to his throat and tugged at his collar as 
though all at once he experienced a difficulty in 
breathing. , 

For the thought in his mind was this, that here 
at his feet lay a fortune — his for the taking. A 
fortune that would for ever make him secure against 
such hunger and misery and despair as he had 
known of late. 

The temptation shook him from head to foot as 
though some actual physical force had him in its 
grip. He had become a little giddy and his mouth 
was parched and very dry. Creeping to the door 
on tiptoe he listened intently with his ear to the 
keyhole for any sound that might suggest he had 
been watched or overlooked. And this time he 
listened and waited not as before in readiness for 
anything that might chance, but furtively and un- 
easily and with a new and ignoble fear. 

For now his fear was not the natural and even 
wholesome terror of threatening danger that even 
the bravest know though ready to face all, but 
simply and solely a dread lest he should be — seen. 

His mind was made up. He had found this hid- 
den store of jewellery and he would use it to 
protect himself against the brutality of the world 
that had treated him unfairly and callously. He 


60 The Solitary House 

told himself he had as good a right to this treasure 
as any one, and that when accident had thrown it 
in his way under circumstances so peculiar and 
mysterious he would be a fool indeed to neglect 
his opportunity. 

He went back and began feverishly to replace the 
treasure in the dispatch-case from which he had 
taken it. It was not late yet, and he thought that 
if he hurried he might well be miles distant with 
his booty before darkness fell. He would sell or 
pawn some of the less valuable articles till he got 
enough to take him abroad or to America, and there 
he would start a new life, forgetting the nightmare 
that lay behind. 

It seemed to him also that his discovery of this 
hidden hoard offered in part at least an explanation 
of what had happened. No doubt whoever or what- 
ever had attacked him during the night knew of the 
existence of the treasure, was searching for it, and 
feared lest he should find it first. True, he did not 
quite see that it accounted for the way in which the 
house had been left, but perhaps the Mr. Went- 
worth, who had been apparently the late tenant, 
had known nothing of it, and had been lured away 
in order to leave the place free. Or was it possi- 
ble he had known of it, that the hoard was his, and 
that he had been disposed of by a similar attack to 
that made on Keith? 


T emptation 


61 


For what reason, too, had jewellery of such value 
been kept in such a hiding place? And, indeed, 
what was so great and rich a treasure doing in a 
lonely country cottage? Was it perhaps the ac- 
cumulated plunder of some gang of thieves? Was 
the vanished and mysterious Mr. Wentworth their 
chief? In that case, was it possible that some 
threat or danger of a visit from the police accounted 
for the hasty flight of which the cottage had been 
the scene? 

All these and fifty other theories and suggestions 
passed through his mind as he finished replacing 
the jewellery in the dispatch-case, which he secured, 
since the lock was broken, with straps. 

This done, he began to make very hurriedly his 
own preparations for departure. He had put all 
scruple far behind him, his resolution was fierce 
and settled, his mind made up, and he went down- 
stairs with a quick alert tread, ready to dare all, 
do all, risk all, to keep possession of his treasure. 

It was at the very bottom of the stairs, as he 
stepped into the hall, that a thought wandered as 
it were into his mind of this girl visitor who had 
come there asking for her sister, and whose pale, 
grave face seemed suddenly to rise before him with 
startling clearness. The scorn in those dark deep 
eyes, too; how clearly he remembered it, and how 
it had galled, how he had resented it even then 


62 T he Solitary House 


when he had known it must rest on some misap- 
prehension. 

His hand was already stretched out to the front 
door when it came very suddenly and clearly into 
his mind that if she could see him now, that high 
scorn of him her manner had so plainly shown 
would be redoubled, intensified — and justified. 
He felt himself flush at the thought. 

“Oh, well,” he said defiantly, but his hand held 
out to the door dropped back to his side. 

Yes, how she would despise him, how her high 
scorn of what he did would show in her deep, clear- 
shining eyes. And she would be right, for after 
all what was he now but a thief in flight with his 
stolen property? 

Hitherto what Keith had done had presented it- 
self to him in his reckless and bitter mood chiefly in 
the light of a daring jest played at the expense of 
one of those comfortable people to whose class he 
himself belonged, but who of late had chosen to 
treat him as a pariah and an outcast. Besides, for 
a man in bitter need to take food and shelter that 
lay in his way, unused and unwanted by anybody 
else, was one thing, and Keith still felt more than 
half justified in what he had done up till now. 
Then, too, his curiosity had been piqued by the 
strange circumstances of the case, and later his 
anger roused by the murderous and treacherous 


T emptation 


63 


attack made on him. But it was a different thing 
altogether to run away with a great treasure and 
to appropriate to his own use this hidden hoard 
he had found. 

“Oh, hang it all,” he said aloud. 

He flung down the dispatch-case and stood for 
a long time, shaken by doubts and hesitation and 
strong temptation and desire. On the one hand 
there was in that little dispatch-case he could carry 
easily in one hand the means to secure for him a 
life of ease and comfort, of usefulness perhaps, 
his own welfare to his dying day and the respect 
and admiration of his fellows. On the other hand, 
if he lost this opportunity Fate offered him, he 
saw nothing before him but a long existence of 
privation and hardship with a pauper’s death to 
end it. 

And as for that girl he had so suddenly begun to 
think of, what did it matter about her? There 
was not, he supposed, one chance in a million that 
he would ever see her again. She would never 
know anything about it, and yet somehow he re- 
mained oddly unwilling to do anything to justify 
that contempt of him she had seemed to entertain. 

“She’ll never know,” he told himself, “what a 
fool I am; I shall never see her again.” 

The dispatch-case with the fortune it contained 
lay where he had thrown it down, and for a long 


64 The Solitary House 

time he stood moodily in the hall with his hands in 
his pockets, hardly moving. 

“Oh, well,” he said at last, “who cares?” 

And this was a sign that he had given up his 
plans, and that rather than permit a girl of whom 
he knew nothing, whom he had seen only once and 
would most likely never see again, the right to 
think of him with contempt, he was abandoning the 
fortune that lay ready to his hand. 

It was a strange thing that the moment he had 
reached this decision he became extraordinarily 
cheerful and gay. He found himself whistling as 
he went off to get the tea of which all at once he 
felt the need, and he enjoyed it thoroughly. 

“And now,” he mused as he poured himself out 
another cup of tea, “the point is, what am I to do?” 

To resolve this question he went into the dining- 
room, helped himself to a cigar, and as it was a 
fine evening drew up a comfortable chair to the 
open window and sat there, smoking and con- 
sidering, with the dispatch-case that held a for- 
tune lying carelessly on a chair near at hand. 

“It’s a rummy business altogether,” was the re- 
mark he made when he had half finished his cigar. 

It occurred to him that, strictly speaking, it 
was probably his duty to go to the police and in- 
form them of all that had happened. But he felt 
that very likely his story would not be believed; 


T emptation 


65 


he was still under the impression that a warrant 
would be out for his arrest on account of his skirm- 
ish with his late skipper and the constable, and his 
new-found virtue did not go to the extreme of 
making him wish to deliver himself into the hands 
of the enemy to undergo possibly a sentence of 
six months’ hard labour. Also, it was possible 
the result would be still more serious, for if any- 
thing had really happened to the unknown Mr. 
Wentworth, and that gentleman’s body were found 
later on, it seemed to Keith quite likely he might 
be suspected. No, he decided very firmly that 
he must keep as far from the police as possible; 
at any rate, until everything was a great deal 
clearer than it was just then. 

He determined, too, that he would not leave the 
house at present, but would endeavour to see the 
end of the strange complications in which he was 
involved. And a potent though unacknowledged 
factor in this decision he came to stay where he 
was for the present, was his hope that perhaps 
there might come there again that girl whose grave 
eyes and pale, troubled face had so powerfully 
impressed him. Nor did he forget that there was 
some one lurking in the vicinity with whom he felt 
he had an account to settle. 

So he determined to stay on for a while. After 
all, the house contained, apart from the hidden 


66 The Solitary House 


treasure of jewels, very many valuables. He 
would appoint himself caretaker for the time be- 
ing, and a caretaker was surely entitled to his 
food and even to an occasional cigar. 

As for the treasure of the jewels, he made up 
his mind to find for them a fresh hiding place. It 
would not be safe to replace them under the board 
of the flooring in the boxroom, since, for one thing, 
that now showed plain traces of having been re- 
cently lifted. And the knowledge of where the 
jewels were, if possessed by him alone, might be a 
very useful, perhaps a trump, card to play in the 
future. 

Having settled all these points and decided to 
await developments where he was, Keith busied 
himself for a little about the house, which he felt 
a caretaker ought to keep as tidy as possible, and 
then thought that he would go for a walk in Files 
Wood and see if there was anything to be seen 
there, and make himself familiar with the lie of the 
land. 

He locked the house up carefully before he left 
it, and crossing the garden went into the wood, 
where for a time he strolled about, apparently aim- 
lessly, but in reality keeping a very sharp look- 
out indeed. 

But he saw nothing and heard nothing, and he 
was thinking of returning to the house, since now 


T emptation 


67 


the shadows lay thick beneath the trees and the 
darkness was increasing rapidly, when he heard a 
sound as of some one approaching along the path 
that here bisected the wood and that he himself had 
come by on the previous evening. 

“It’ll be Mr. Morgan again perhaps,” he thought, 
and not wishing just then to meet the garrulous 
little vicar he stepped behind the nearest tree. 
“Or perhaps,” he added to himself, thinking of 
Mr. Morgan’s stories, “perhaps it is the foul fiend 
himself coming along.” 

The next moment the new-comer was in view 
round a bend of the path, and he saw it was the 
girl who had visited him the night before asking for 
her sister, and of whom he had thought so much 


since. 


CHAPTER VII 


The Broken Bicycle 

Why this should surprise him he did not know, 
but it did, and he stared in blank bewilderment as 
she came briskly on, wheeling her bicycle before 
her. He did not show himself, but stood watching 
from his place of concealment, and she passed 
on quickly, so that in a moment or two a turn in 
the path hid her from him. He gave a little start 
then and rubbed his eyes as though he had seen 
a vision and was not sure that it was real, and at 
once hurried after her. 

Soon he caught sight of her again. She did not 
look round and so she was not aware of his prox- 
imity, and as the ground was more open here and 
the path straight, he was able to keep her in sight 
without pressing too close upon her, till presently 
she stopped, mounted her bicycle, and rode on. 
He had not anticipated this manoeuvre, and stood 
still, not quite sure what to do. Before he had 
decided she was some distance away and had dis- 
appeared amidst the trees. 


The Broken Bicycle 69 


Evidently her destination was the house, and 
Keith hurried on after her. It was very quiet here 
under the trees, and the darkness was gathering 
fast, but there was still sufficient light for him to 
see her plainly, riding on ahead at a good pace, 
though sometimes she would be hidden by a turn 
of the path or intervening trees and then almost at 
once come into view again. 

Very quiet and peaceful was it in the wood, 
amidst the trees and the fast falling shades of 
night. Keith heard nothing, saw nothing; he was 
aware of no foreboding of evil, but he found him- 
self all at once running his fastest, so that she on 
her bicycle should not get too far ahead of him 
and have too long to wait when she arrived at the 
house and found it locked up and empty. 

He could not see her now, for the turnings of the 
path and the thicker growth of the trees hid her 
from him as he ran. The silence all around 
seemed to increase; the stillness grew ominous as 
though to witness some catastrophe; all nature 
held breath and was still. The shadows length- 
ened and lay more thickly; it was as though there 
were something that they wished to hide. 

He ran faster and faster; he had the impression 
that the utmost haste was necessary; that unless he 
sped more quickly yet an awful thing might hap- 
pen in this silent wood, beneath these overhanging 


70 The Solitary House 

trees, amidst these dark and quiet places where 
the night was rising in great spreading pools of 
darkness and stillness. On he flew, and he knew, 
though he knew not why, that a great cry trembled 
on his lips, a cry of panic and of horror. He 
turned a corner of the path, and there beneath a 
great, far-spreading oak lay a broken bicycle; but 
of the girl who had ridden it no sign or trace was 
visible, neither to the right nor to the left, neither 
in front nor behind. 

He stood still, and before him lay the broken 
bicycle, and all around was heavy gloom and a 
great silence through which there reached him no 
faintest sound to tell him what had happened or 
what her fate had been. 

For a moment sheer panic overwhelmed him, so 
that he could have screamed aloud like a frightened 
child and set off running and never stopped till he 
fell exhausted. But by an effort he controlled 
himself, clenching his fists and holding his breath 
and shutting his eyes and then opening them again, 
and at his feet still lay the broken bicycle. 

He asked himself dully what could have hap- 
pened? What had broken the machine, and why 
was it lying there, and what had become of its 
rider? And he remembered with sudden extraordi- 
nary clearness, with the very tone and accent with 
which they had been spoken, the words of Mr. 


The Broken Bicycle 71 


Morgan, to the effect that in this place there had 
been many mysterious disappearances. 

It seemed to him that this was not the least mys- 
terious among them all, and when he looked about 
him it seemed to him also that this wood was an 
evil place and the home of some very dark and 
evil mystery. 

He could not have been far away when it hap- 
pened — whatever had happened. Yet he had 
heard not a sound, not one sound to break the utter 
silence of the softly coming night, not a cry of any 
sort, no echo of any struggle. 

Yet she had vanished all in an instant, snatched 
away as it were into middle air, and her bicycle 
lay broken at his feet. 

At that moment he would not have been surprised 
had the trees parted and shown some awful and 
unimaginable apparition and the lost girl in its 
power. 

All at once he found himself running between the 
trees, this way and that, quartering the ground like 
an eager hound searching for scent. Backwards 
and forwards, to and fro, crouching low, sending 
swift searching glances on every side, he went, and 
once he found upon the thorns of a bush a piece of 
tom ribbon and once a little farther on, towards a 
denser growth of trees and mass of tangled under- 
growth, he came upon a little handkerchief, edged 


72 The Solitary House 

with dainty lace, lying in the middle of small pud- 
dle where a fallen branch rotted. 

These at least were signs, and he ran on lightly 
and very swiftly, his quick eyes everywhere at once, 
every faculty that he possessed strung to the highest 
pitch and all concentrated on the one task of dis- 
covering some sign of the lost girl, and suddenly 
beneath a tall beech tree he saw something white 
and huddled lying on the ground. He ran towards 
it, and as he drew near, from a bush upon his 
right, there came a sound like nothing he had ever 
heard before, not human, not animal either, but 
a9 it were betwixt the two, and somehow vibrant 
with hate and fury and obscene disappointment. 

The moment that he heard this sound he turned 
and leaped right at the bush whence it had seemed 
to come, and as he sprang he saw something — but 
what he could not tell — slip away and vanish be- 
hind a tree, something quick and low and small, 
crouching near the ground and running quickly. 
His instinct was to rush in pursuit, but he checked 
himself and turned and ran back to the prostrate 
girl, feeling that the first necessary thing above all 
else was to assure her safety, and that if he let 
himself be drawn away, for no matter how short a 
time or distance, she might have vanished before 
he could come again. 

She was quite unconscious when he reached her 


The Broken Bicycle 73 


side, her face was very pale, her skin cold and 
clammy to the touch, so that for one dreadful 
moment he thought that she was dead, till he saw 
that she was breathing faintly. Her long soft hair 
had become disarranged and lay about her shoul- 
ders in a tangled mass, but so far as he could tell 
she did not seem to have sustained any injury. 
For a moment or two he hesitated, but plainly he 
could not leave her there, and so he stooped and 
lifted her and carried her away, hardly feeling her 
weight at all, for she was light and he was strung to 
the highest pitch of his powers. As he went thus 
through the trees, walking very quickly, her un- 
conscious form in his arms with her head upon his 
shoulder and her long loose hair hanging down 
like a soft and scented cloud, he had again that 
sensation he had experienced once before in this 
wood of being watched and followed. And once he 
heard, or thought he heard, close behind him that 
same indescribable sound, not human, hardly even 
animal, he had heard before, charged with anger 
and hatred and vilest threat. 

He walked on quickly, taking no notice, but alert 
and ready for any attack, and up to the very edge 
of the wood he still had the idea that he was being 
followed and watched by something unknown and 
a little terrible and very vile. But the pursuit, 
if so it can be called, ceased once he was away from 


74 T h e S o lit a r y House 


the trees, and unmolested he carried his uncon- 
scious burden across the open space that separated 
the house from the wood and through the garden 
to the front door. He had to put her down while 
he got the door open, and only then was he aware 
how much he was exhausted. He stood for a mo- 
ment panting and resting, and then he stooped and 
lifted her again and carried her within and put her 
down on the sofa in the drawing-room. 

It was nearly dark indoors by now, and the first 
thing he did was to strike a match and light the 
lamp that stood in the drawing-room and the other 
hanging lamp in the hall, and he found their light 
and the radiance they gave very comforting indeed. 
Quickly he secured the front door, and then went 
back to the unconscious girl. 

She was still very pale, and her skin still had that 
cold and clammy feeling that had frightened him 
so much, but her breathing remained perceptible. 
Very hurriedly — for he could not free himself from 
the fear that if he left her even for a moment she 
might vanish in some mysterious new way — he ran 
into the kitchen and got some water with which he 
bathed her temples and sprinkled her face in the 
hope of restoring her senses. But his efforts were 
unavailing, and he ceased them soon, fearing to 
do harm, and stood by her side, wondering what 
to do and how to get help. 


The Broken Bicycle 75 


He dared not leave her; no matter how secure he 
made the house he could not think her safe in it 
when he remembered the strange and mysterious 
attack that had been made on him during the night. 
And he saw no way of summoning assistance. The 
spot was lonely in the extreme ; it was rare for any 
one to pass even during the day, and so far as he 
knew there was no other dwelling within miles. 
It seemed to him all he could do was to wait till 
morning in the hope that whoever had left the milk 
and eggs he had found on the sill of the kitchen 
window would come again on the morrow and 
would be willing to go for help. 

For a little indeed he debated within himself 
whether he ought to make an effort to carry or 
convey by some means the unconscious girl to 
some place where she could have help. But he 
dismissed the notion as impracticable; it had taxed 
his strength to the full to get her even the short 
distance from where he had found her to the house; 
and besides, he dared not take the risk when he 
knew that in the night without there lurked some 
unknown and hostile force ready to take him un- 
awares and at a disadvantage. 

There seemed to him nothing for it but to watch 
and wait till morning, and so he made his patient 
as comfortable as he could, removing her shoes 
and loosening her clothing at the throat, and 


76 The S o li tar y House 


covering her up warmly with rugs he found 
upstairs. 

He left the lamp burning by her side, and taking 
an arm-chair, he placed it in the hall on the thresh- 
old of the drawing-room and prepared to pass the 
night there. 

Slowly the long hours passed away. When he 
could sit still no longer he got up and walked about 
the hall, and every now and again he went to the 
side of the unconscious girl to see how she was. 
So far as he could tell no change took place in her 
condition, and a dreadful fear possessed him that 
she would never recover, but would pass from life 
like that, before he could summon help. 

It seemed to him that never since the world be- 
gan could any night have been as long as was this 
night. 

Every second was a torment, every minute was 
an agony, every hour an eternity of dread and suf- 
fering. 

But this is written and changes not, that all 
things come to their appointed end, and so at last, 
at last, he heard at about half-past six approaching 
footsteps. They were those of a boy coming with 
the milk, and Keith hurried at once to meet him 
and told him there was some one ill in the house, 
giving him also a note and asking him to hurry 


The Broken Bicycle 77 


with it to the nearest doctor at his utmost speed. 
The boy seemed intelligent and to understand and 
went off at a trot, and Keith returned to the house 
to wait with what patience he might. But he had 
three hours more of eternity to endure before at 
last he heard the glad sound of an approaching 
motor containing a doctor and the nurse, for whom 
he had also asked in his note. 

The doctor was a brisk, elderly man who seemed 
very horrified to think his patient had been left so 
long without attention, and by no means inclined 
to listen to or accept Keith’s explanation that he 
had not thought it safe to leave her. 

“Not safe to leave her in that state, you mean,” 
he said severely. “How did it happen? — a fall?” 

Keith told his story briefly, saying that appar- 
ently she had been attacked, though by whom he 
could not say, and the doctor seemed a good deal 
puzzled and slightly incredulous. 

“I don’t see who could attack her there,” he said. 
“It can’t have been poachers, for there is nothing 
in that wood to poach, and tramps and so on give 
it a wide berth. Don’t you think it may have been 
an accidental fall from her bicycle?” 

Keith said he was sure not, but the doctor ap- 
peared inclined to keep his own opinion. 

“There is no sign of any violence except for the 


78 The S o lit ar y House 


blow on the head,” he said, “and that seems very 
like the result of a fall. Still, I suppose you had 
better inform the police, Mr. — er ?” 

“Wentworth,” said Keith after a moment’s pause, 
thinking perhaps it might avoid complications if 
he adopted the name which seemed to be that of 
the rightful tenant of the house. 

“And ?” continued the doctor, glancing at 

his patient and at her left hand on which there was 
no ring. 

“On — er — my sister,” said Keith hurriedly, real- 
izing that she had to be accounted for, and not 
knowing what else to say. 

The doctor did not make any remark, though he 
did not look too satisfied. He and the nurse con- 
veyed Keith’s newly-adopted relative to the room 
upstairs and put her to bed there, and after a 
time the doctor came down again, leaving the nurse 
in charge. He still seemed a good deal upset that 
his patient had been left so long without attention, 
and was evidently inclined to regard Keith with 
some suspicion. To Keith’s relief, however, he 
did not appear to think her condition very serious. 

“It’s a case of concussion,” he said — “rather a 
bad one; but I see no reason why she should not 
pull round. I’ll look in again later on today.” 

He went off then, and presently the nurse he had 
left came downstairs for something she wanted. 


The Broken B i c y cl e 79 


She seemed a pleasant, amiable woman, but not 
very intelligent, and she was not trained at all. 
She went back to her patient, and Keith got himself 
some food of which he was beginning to feel the 
need, and then sat moodily in the kitchen, asking 
himself what was going to happen next and won- 
dering what he ought to do. 

“I’m in a jolly hole,” he thought. “The first 
thing she’ll let out when she comes round is that she 
isn’t my sister, and then there’s sure to be trouble. 
But what the mischief could I say? The doctor 
was suspicious enough as it was. It only needs the 
genuine Wentworth to turn up to put the top on 
the whole show.” 

He reflected dismally that so far as he could see 
there was no possible way out for him from the 
complications in which he had become involved, 
and then about one o’clock the nurse came to the 
head of the stairs and called him. 

“She’s conscious now,” she said, “but she 
doesn’t know anything.” 

“She doesn’t know anything?” repeated Keith, 
puzzled. 

“No,” answered the nurse, “she doesn’t know 
what her name is or where she is or anything — her 
memory’s quite gone. The doctor said it might 
be like that when she came round.” 





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PART TWO 


CHAPTER VIII 


What the Nurse Saw 

The nurse wanted some food warmed, and as 
she could not leave her patient, who was in a very 
disturbed and excited state,. she said, Keith offered 
to undertake the task. He did not know much 
about cooking, but he managed very successfully, 
and when he had taken what he had prepared up- 
stairs he went and sat in the hall so as to be at 
hand if anything else was wanted. 

It seemed to him this new development made 
the situation even more complicated than before. 
If the injured girl had lost her memory, as the 
nurse declared, she would not be able to explain 
anything. True, she would also not contradict his 
claim to be her brother, but what was he to do with 
a strange girl, of whom he knew nothing and who 
had lost her memory, to look after, with a store of 
hidden treasure to protect, and with near at hand 
some strange lurking hostile creature prowling and 

ready to make a fresh murderous attack at the 
83 


84 The Solitary House 

first opportunity? He did not know in the very 
least what action to take. 

And then suppose the missing Mr. Wentworth 
made his appearance; as presumably he might do 
at any minute? Keith found himself whistling 
softly at the thought. Apparently Mr. Wentworth, 
whoever he might be, had offended or injured the 
unconscious girl upstairs in some very grave man- 
ner to judge from the contempt she had shown 
towards Keith when taking him for Wentworth, 
and yet she could not know Wentworth personally, 
or the mistake she had made would have been 
impossible. Possibly, then, Wentworth would not 
recognize her either, or even he might not know 
anything about her. 

Keith gave up trying to find any way out of the 
extraordinary position in which he found himself. 
It did not appear to him that he could possibly 
extricate himself from the situation in which he 
was entangled, and he decided that there was noth- 
ing for it except to wait quietly the course of events, 
and meanwhile do what he could to help the 
unfortunate girl thrown so strangely into his 
care. If she recovered, things would no doubt be 
clearer. 

That much decided, he felt more cheerful, and 
he was kept fairly busy for the rest of the day by 
the nurse, who appeared to have many require- 


What the Nurse Saw 85 


ments both for herself and for her patient, and who 
expected him to satisfy them all. Fortunately she 
was able to report her patient as being much calmer 
now and inclined to sleep. 

Late in the afternoon the doctor came back. He 
was in a great hurry, he explained, as he had two 
or three very pressing cases on his hands. On the 
whole he seemed fairly satisfied with his patient’s 
physical condition, but less so with her men- 
tal state, which apparently bothered him a good 
deal. 

“Not that loss of memory is an unusual result 
of bad concussion,” he said, “but there are features 
in this case that are very unusual and that I hardly 
understand as yet. Miss Wentworth’s loss of 
knowledge of her identity is very complete, but 
otherwise her faculties do not seem injured, and 
yet she is in a most unstable and nervous condition 
without there being anything apparent to account 
for it. Has she had any serious mental shock 
lately?” 

“She has had a certain private trouble,” an- 
swered Keith cautiously, thinking of what she had 
said about her missing sister, “but not any shock 
exactly that I know of.” 

The doctor asked one or two more questions, 
to which Keith replied as best he could, but neces- 
sarily vaguely since he knew so little. This vague- 


86 The Solitary House 

ness <and hesitation the doctor evidently felt and 
resented, for he remarked shortly that he could do 
little if he did not receive absolute confidence. 
Keith managed to soothe him to some extent by 
protestations of the most complete confidence, and 
the doctor, after repeating some of the instructions 
he had given the nurse and emphasizing especially 
that the patient was to be kept quiet and that all 
excitement of any kind was to be most carefully 
avoided, hurried off in his car. 

Later the nurse came down to say that Miss 
Wentworth was in a sound sleep, and that she 
thought she would take the opportunity to get her- 
self some tea. She seemed a very talkative per- 
son, and she mentioned casually as she chatted on 
that she had found the name “Esme” marked on 
some of the girl’s clothing. 

“Very pretty name, too,” said the nurse, “but, 
lor’, sir, when I said it the poor young lady didn’t 
know it for her own. She might be just a new- 
born baby, so she might.” 

Later on still she called Keith and told him his 
sister wanted to speak to him. 

“I told her she ought to rest,” she said, “but 
she won’t listen, and the doctor said she wasn’t to 
be allowed to worry herself, which she is doing 
terrible just now, so I suppose she had better have 
her own way. But I told her it mustn’t be long, 


What the Nurse Saw 87 


and don’t you say no more than you can help, 
sir.” 

Keith was very well able to give this under- 
taking, and he went accordingly into the room 
where the injured girl was lying. She was still 
very pale, and her eyes looked strangely bright 
against the pallor of her countenance, but her 
appearance was not now of that death-like char- 
acter which had' so alarmed him before. She was 
very weak still, and when she spoke her voice was 
no more than a whisper. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, stooping 
over her. 

“I don’t know,” she murmured ; “my head aches 
. . . are you ... is it you they say is my 
brother?” 

“Yes,” he answered. 

“I don’t remember you,” she said distrustfully. 
“I don’t remember you at all. I thought if you 
were my brother I would remember you, but I 
don’t.” 

“You mustn’t worry,” he answered. “It will all 
come back to you very soon. You see you’ve had 
a fall, and the doctor says that people often for- 
get things when they have had a fall.” 

“Forget who they are?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he answered; “it’s quite common; noth- 
ing to worry about at all. You will remember 


88 The Solitary House 

everything in time; only you must be patient and 
keep as quiet and restful as you can. It’s only 
the effect of your fall, you know.” 

She raised herself a little in the bed and looked 
at him very intently and searchingly. He thought 
to himself that hers were the deepest, clearest, most 
penetrating eyes he had ever seen, and now that 
they had no longer that expression of hard scorn 
they had shown towards him before, he saw also 
that they were very tender and gentle. With a sud- 
den warmth of sympathy and pity he said to her: 

“You mustn’t worry; it will all come right.” 

“There was something else,” she muttered; “it 
wasn’t only a fall, there was something else.” 

“Yes, what?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” she answered wearily; “I’ve 
forgotten. But it was awful . . . awful.” 

“Well, you mustn’t think about it any more,” 
he repeated. “You are perfectly safe here, you 
know, and in a few days you will be quite well 
again.” 

“If you are my brother, what is your name?” 
she asked suddenly, and added with a pitiful little 
gesture: “You see I don’t know even that.” 

“It’s Keith,” he answered. 

“Keith,” she repeated, “Keith,” and though she 
was evidently only repeating the name in the hope 
that it might arouse some dormant recollection, he 


What the Nurse Saw 89 


thrilled in every pulse of his being to hear it come 
so softly from her lips. 

“I think you had better go now, sir,” interrupted 
the nurse. “Miss Wentworth is not strong enough 
to talk any longer.” 

“I am very tired, so tired,” she admitted. She 
put out her hand. “Good-bye — Keith,” she said. 

“Good-bye, Esme,” he answered, and took her 
hand and held it for a moment in both his, with a 
warmth that was perhaps a little more than broth- 
erly. 

She seemed in some obscure way to feel it so, 
for she withdrew her hand a little quickly and 
then, as though repenting her brusqueness, gave 
him a smile that seemed to him like a divine en- 
chantment. He took the memory of it very clearly 
with him as he left the room. 

Presently the nurse came down to see about the 
arrangements for the night. She wanted to make 
up a bed for herself in the room with Esme, and 
Keith helped her as far as he could to get what 
was necessary. He promised also to leave his own 
door open and to be ready to answer any call. 

“They do say that there wood,” the nurse ob- 
served — “but such like stories are all rubbish, that’s 
what I say. I was never one to listen to ’em, 
either.” 

She seemed indeed very contemptuous of the 


90 The Solitary House 


stories that were told about File’s Wood and very 
emphatic in declaring that no one of any sense 
paid them any attention. 

“Though it’s all along of such talk,” she added, 
“that the house here was empty so long as it was.” 

“Oh, was it empty long?” Keith asked. 

“Years,” answered the nurse. “The gentleman 
that had it before you disappeared one day, and 
after that no one would live here. Folks say he 
went for a walk in the wood and from that hour 
he was never seen or heard of again, and there’s 
some do say it was the Devil got him, but of course 
that’s just silly talk and I’m sure I don’t believe a 
word of it.” 

Though she was so sure she did not believe the 
story, she appeared somewhat inclined to dwell 
upon it, and she very plainly and thoroughly ap- 
proved of the careful way in which Keith secured 
all doors and windows for the night. About eleven 
she retired, reporting before she did so that her 
patient was still asleep; and Keith, undressing no 
more than to remove his coat, lay down on his 
bed, with the door of his room open so as to be 
ready for any summons. 

He was very tired, but his mind was full of so 
many and such disturbing thoughts that he felt 
•no inclination to sleep, and he lay awake for hours, 
perpending. But for all his hard thinking he could 


What the Nurse Saw 91 


see nothing it was possible for him to do except 
to wait what should happen next. 

“But it’s a jolly awkward position,” he said to 
himself, “and if poor little Esme gets her memory 
back it will be all up at once, or if the Wentworth 
man comes back at any time. And if the poor 
child doesn’t recover her memory and if no one 
turns up here — well, what on earth am I to do? 
I would like to bet a good deal,” he mused, “there 
never was quite such a predicament as this I’ve 
got into.” 

But thinking about it made it no better, and at 
last from sheer exhaustion he fell asleep and 
dreamed that Esme smiled at him and called him 
“Keith” once more in her low sweet voice that 
changed suddenly into a cry so loud and shrill that 
he leaped from the bed with it still ringing wildly 
in his ears. He dashed from the room into the 
passage. The door of the sick room was open, and 
by the dim light of the turned-down lamp he could 
see the nurse, half dressed, lying on the floor in a 
faint and Esme sitting up in bed looking very 
frightened and upset. 

“What’s the matter?” he said. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she faltered. “I 
was asleep and some one screamed, and I woke up 
and the nurse fell down like that. Oh dear, what 
can have happened?” 


92 The Solitary House 

She was trembling violently and was plainly very 
much alarmed, and Keith told her to lie down again 
and did his best to soothe her. He was very angry 
that she had been disturbed and startled in such 
a manner by the very person put there to shield 
her against disturbance, and to revive the prostrate 
nurse he adopted the drastic procedure of pouring 
a jug half full of water over her. She sat up at 
once, gasping and shivering. 

“Oh, oh,” she moaned, “oh, oh.” 

“What on earth . . . ?” demanded Keith 
angrily. 

“It was the devil,” she whispered, “the devil 
himself — he opened the door and looked straight 
at me.” 

“Nonsense,” said Keith; “don’t talk such rub- 
bish.” 

“Well, he did,” the nurse muttered; “ he opened 
the door and looked at me — I saw him as plain as 
ever I saw anything.” 


CHAPTER IX 


Esme’s Questions 

She crawled back to her bed and would say no 
more, but lay shaking and moaning as if in an 
extremity of terror. Nor did she even attempt to 
do anything for the patient of whom she was sup- 
posed to be in charge and whom she had so seri- 
ously upset. Esme indeed was trembling violently, 
and seemed on the verge of fresh collapse, but 
Keith sat beside her, holding her hand and trying 
to soothe her, and presently she grew calmer. 

Towards daybreak she fell into a sound sleep, 
and Keith, who was thoroughly worn out since this 
was his second night with little rest, lay down on 
the floor across the threshold of the room, and 
almost at once was overtaken by deep slumber. 

When he awoke it was broad day. Esme was 
still sleeping, but the nurse had vanished. On the 
kitchen table downstairs was a brief ill-written note 
to say she had gone and did not intend to return, 
this house being in her opinion, she wrote, no place 
93 


94 The Solitary House 

for a Christian. A good deal disturbed by her 
desertion, Keith went back upstairs and found 
Esme now awake. 

“Is that you, Keith?” she said. 

“Yes,” he said; “it’s most awfully awkward, 
the nurse has cleared off.” 

“Because of ?” Esme asked. 

“Because she’s a fool,” growled Keith, “because 
of her nightmare last night; her bad dream has 
scared her out of her silly mind.” 

“Was it a dream, do you think?” Esme asked 
slowly. 

“Well, I didn’t see anything,” answered Keith, 
“and I don’t think there was anything to see, 
either.” 

But though he said this his tone lacked convic- 
tion, and he felt that Esme was not satisfied. 

She suggested that she had better get up to 
help, but he persuaded her to lie still. He got 
her some breakfast, managing as best he could, 
and fortunately it was not long before the doctor 
appeared and showed himself very angry and dis- 
turbed when he heard of the nurse’s desertion. 

“I never heard of such a thing; it’s the last case 
she’ll ever get from me,” he fumed. “Disgraceful, 
absolutely disgraceful.” 

He spent some time with Esme, and told Keith 
afterwards that while she was getting on very well 


Esme’s Questions 95 

physically, her mental state was still very puzzling 
and somewhat disturbing. 

The chief thing he impressed upon Keith was 
that she was to be kept quiet, as the effects of the 
shock she had sustained still remained. Rest and 
quiet were what she needed, and as soon as her 
bodily health was completely re-established it was 
to be hoped that her memory would return. 

He went away, promising to obtain another nurse 
for them, but when he came back late in the after- 
noon he brought only a young girl from a cottage 
situated four or five miles away, but also one of 
the dwellings nearest to them. She was to give 
what help she could for a few hours during the day, 
but made it quite plain at once that she would not 
spend the night there. It was the best arrange- 
ment the doctor had been able to make, for strange 
stories were already in circulation, and no one was 
at all anxious to have anything to do with the 
place or willing on any terms whatever to be found 
anywhere near it after dark. 

“Pack of silly fools,” growled the doctor, who 
was in a very bad temper. “I have been telling 
them what I think of them, but it’s no good ; they’re 
as obstinate as donkeys. The only thing I can 
advise you to do is to get a nurse down from 
London. I could telegraph for one, but even so I 
doubt if she could get here tonight.” 


96 The Solitary House 


Keith hesitated on the score of expense, for he 
did not quite see where he was to get the money 
from to pay for a nurse. The final arrangement 
arrived at was that the girl the doctor had brought 
was to come every morning to help, and that she 
was to be allowed to depart quite early, so as to 
be able to get to her home well before dark. As 
for the night Keith and Esme were to manage as 
best they could, the doctor declaring, however, that 
he did not suppose Esme would require any atten- 
tion. 

Keith busied himself during the rest of the day 
making two heavy wooden bars to fit into the slots 
he placed within Esme’s room on each side of the 
door, so that she could not only lock herself in 
but could also barricade the door with a security 
nothing short of a battering ram could affect. 

“I don’t know what was the matter last night,” 
he said, “and whether that woman really saw some- 
thing or whether it was just a bad dream she had, 
but we will make sure that no one can open this 
door without your knowing.” 

He made up a bed for himself, too, on the land- 
ing just outside her door. He did not occupy it, 
however, but remained on watch nearly all the 
night, crouching in a corner by the landing cup- 
board and ready to spring at once on any intruder 
who should venture to come prowling there. But 


Esme’s Questions 


97 


he heard and saw nothing, save for the pattering of 
heavy rain that fell during the night on the glass 
of the closed skylight, and towards dawn he lay 
down on the bed and slept for an hour or two. 

The doctor came fairly early again, and pro- 
fessed himself well satisfied with his patient’s con- 
dition and progress, and during the morning their 
new handmaid arrived and stayed till afternoon. 

For the rest of the day Keith and Esme were 
alone. Once she began to question him rather 
closely, but he was able to plead the doctor’s or- 
ders that she was not to excite herself, and she was 
too tired and feeling too weak to persist. During 
the night he again remained on guard while she 
slept securely behind her barred and locked door, 
and in the morning she said she had slept well and 
soundly. Her rest had evidently done her a good 
deal of good, for she was looking much better and 
appeared stronger in every way, but Keith’s lack of 
sleep was beginning to tell on him and showed itself 
in his worn expression and bloodshot eyes. Dur- 
ing the afternoon of this day he fell sound asleep 
on a chair on which he sat down for a moment and 
only awoke when it was beginning to grow dark 
to find Esme, fully dressed, sitting opposite to 
him. 

“Poor boy,” she said, seeing him open his eyes, 
“you must have been quite worn out.” 


98 T h e S olitary House 


“Have I been asleep?” he asked, rubbing his 
eyes. “I didn’t know. What made you get up? 
The doctor said ” 

“I got tired of lying up there,” she interrupted, 
“and he didn’t positively say I wasn’t to. Besides, 
I thought perhaps something had happened; it was 
all so quiet and you didn’t answer when I called.” 

He felt very vexed and annoyed with himself, 
but had to admit that he was much better for his 
rest. She continued to question him and managed 
to make him admit that he had remained on watch 
the greater part of each night. 

“You see,” he explained, “if there is any one 
comes prowling about here at night, I want to know 
who it is.” 

“But if you make all the doors and windows 
fast no one could get in, could they?” she said. 

“They were all fast,” he answered moodily, “that 
night the nurse said she saw some one open the 
door and look at her.” 

“Well, she couldn’t have really,” declared Esme, 
and went on to ask Keith questions about herself 
he found it very difficult, impossible rather, to 
answer. He had to make what excuses he could 
to satisfy her, and he saw her looking at him rather 
oddly once or twice. 

She was still weak, and getting up had tired her 


E s m e 9 s Q u e s ti o n s 


99 


a good deal, so that he was able presently to per- 
suade her to go back to bed. However, it had done 
her no harm, for in the morning she seemed much 
better and stronger, and the doctor appeared very 
pleased with her progress when he arrived. She 
was so well, he said, that he decided not to call the 
next day, as he was very busy, and this house 
was in so lonely and out of the way a spot that 
it took up a lot of his time to get there. He told 
Keith that she had made a remarkably good re- 
covery, and that so far as he could see she would 
soon be all right again. But there was still no sign 
of any improvement in her memory. 

‘‘Try all you can to stimulate it,” he said. 
“Make natural references to the past; any little clue 
may give her the lost thread. But don’t worry her 
about it or let her worry herself with trying to 
remember; let it come naturally, with as little con- 
scious effort as possible.” 

Keith promised to do the best he could, but at 
the same time, as he knew absolutely nothing about 
her past life, he did not see how he was to make 
natural passing references to it during conversation, 
as the doctor recommended. 

The next day, as it happened, their handmaid 
failed them also, so they were alone all day and 
had to manage as best they could. Esme, who got 


100 The Solitary House 

up during the morning, seemed to think this excel- 
lent fun, and to Keith the situation would have been 
perfect beyond all dreams had only his mind been 
just a little more at ease. 

The following morning the missing handmaid’s 
father arrived to claim her wages and to say she 
was not coming any more. It seemed she had had 
a fright on the way home; she had seen — or heard 
— something — or somebody — exactly what, was 
anything but clear. But anyhow she had been 
badly frightened and she was not coming again. 

“And if I may make so bold as to speak,” added 
her worthy father with a glance at Esme, “what I 
say is as this place ain’t fit for no one, and you and 
the lady would be better somewhere else; it’s an 
ill place this and ill things happen.” 

He was obviously and so thoroughly in earnest 
that his words had an odd impressiveness of their 
own and produced an effect both on Keith and 
Esme. And indeed Keith would have been very 
glad to leave the place and go elsewhere had he 
only had the very least idea in the world where else 
to go to. 

After the old man had taken his departure Esme 
seemed very quiet and thoughtful. She went into 
the drawing-room and, sitting down at the piano, 
played a few notes. It was the first time she had 
done such a thing, and Keith heard her and came 


E s m e’ s Q u e s ti o n s 


101 


into the room. She stopped at once and turned 
towards him. 

“Is it not strange,” she said, “that I can play 
the piano and yet cannot remember how or where 
I learned?” 

“Yes,” answered Keith, “but you know you 
must not worry yourself. The doctor always says 
that the more you worry yourself and fret about it, 
the longer your memory will be coming back.” 

“How can one help worrying?” she answered 
impatiently. “It’s silly of him to say I oughtn’t to. 
Suppose he is wrong and it never does come back 
at all?” 

“Oh, but it will,” he assured her eagerly; “there 
can be no doubt of that; of course it will.” 

“Keith,” she said, “what did that man mean by 
saying that ill things happen here?” 

“Oh, that was all rubbish,” he answered quickly. 

“Keith,” she said again, “I think it was an ill 
thing like that made me lose my memory.” 

“My dear child,” he protested, “you know you 
only make it much worse by talking about it and 
worrying.” 

“How can I help when you won’t tell me any- 
thing?” she said. 

“It is better for it to come back naturally,” he 
answered evasively. “You mustn’t worry,, that’s 
the main point.” 


102 The Sol i tar y House 


“How can I help,” she exclaimed again, very 
passionately, “when I don’t know who I am, or why 
I am here, or why you say you are my brother 
when I know very well that you are not?” 


CHAPTER X 


Summer Days 

For a moment he could only look at her, so ut- 
terly taken aback and surprised did he feel. 

“Why do you say that?” he stammered. 

“Well, you aren’t, are you?” she insisted. 

“How do you know?” he asked. 

“There, you see,” she exclaimed quickly, “I 
knew it; I knew it all the time; I don’t know how; 
I felt it. Why did you say you were? Tell me 
everything now; tell me all you know, who I am 
and why I am here?” 

She was growing very excited, and he began to 
be seriously alarmed lest her agitation should have 
some ill effect. 

“Of course, I will tell you everything I can, if 
you want me to,” he said quickly. “I couldn’t 
very well before. Only you mustn’t excite yourself 
like this. Besides, there isn’t very much I do 
know. I told the doctor you were my sister because 
I had to account for you somehow, and I said that 
on the spur of the moment. I didn’t know what 
else to say.” 


103 


104 The Solitary House 


“But tell me about myself,” she said, “all about 
myself, what my name is and where I belong and 
everything. Oh, if only I could remember!” she 
cried passionately. 

“You are going the very way to stop yourself 
remembering,” he told her severely. “The doctor 
said you were not to excite yourself in any way 
whatever, and here you are working yourself into a 
regular fit. I will tell you all I know, but it isn’t 
much. I was in the wood over there; I was just 
looking round; it was rather late, nearly dark. I 
saw you coming along the path, pushing a bicycle 
before you. There is nothing in that, of course; 
it is a public path. You went by without seeing 
me because of some trees, and you got on your 
bicycle where the ground is a bit more level and 
rode on. I hurried after you because I thought 
you might be coming here, for some reason, and I 
found your bicycle lying on the path under a big 
tree, but no sign of you anywhere. I thought some- 
thing had happened, and I looked round and found 
you lying on the ground a little way away. You 
were unconscious and your head had been hurt, 
but there was no one near you and nothing to show 
what had happened. I picked you up and carried 
you here; there was nothing else to do. When the 
doctor asked me about you I just said you were my 
sister to satisfy him. I didn’t know what else to 


Summer Days 


105 


say. Of course I never dreamed you wouldn’t be 
able to remember anything when you recovered, 
and when I found you had lost your memory I 
simply hadn’t an idea what I ought to do. It 
made everything awkward and puzzling just when 
I expected you to clear things up. Finally I let 
things go as they were. The doctor kept saying 
you might get your memory back any moment, and 
I thought I would wait till then. I thought it would 
be easier then to decide what to do.” 

She remained sitting for some time with her 
hands folded in her lap before her, considering 
gravely what he had said. 

“If I was attacked in the wood . . . who at- 
tacked me?” she asked at last. 

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I wish I did.” 

“The same . . .” she asked, shivering a little, 
“who . . . that the nurse saw?” 

“I should think it very likely,” he agreed reluc- 
tantly. 

“It is very strange,” she muttered, putting her 
hand to her forehead. “I have had the feeling all 
the time that something awful . . . that there was 
something awful and strange happened sometime, 
somewhere ... I can’t remember what.” 

“I oughtn’t to have told you,” he exclaimed re- 
morsefully. “I didn’t mean to, till you were 
stronger.” 


106 The Solitary House 


“I am very glad you did,” she answered. “It is 
all very, very strange, and dreadful, too, but I am 
glad I know; it is better than worrying and think- 
ing and wondering who you were and why you 
pretended to be my brother and what you were 
doing it for. I am glad you told me, but I am 
very tired and I think I will go upstairs to bed 
now.” She got to her feet. “But what are we to 
do?” she asked, lifting her hands suddenly. 
“What a position to be in.” 

“The best and sensible thing to do, in fact the 
only possible thing,” he answered, “is simply for us 
to keep as quiet as we can for a time and for you 
to rest and not bother about anything. If you get 
thoroughly better your memory will almost cer- 
tainly come back. And until it does and we have 
something to go on, we are pretty helpless. Of 
course it is always likely that some inquiry will be 
made. I have been expecting that every minute 
almost. In the meantime the only thing to do is to 
take tilings easily for a couple of weeks or so. You 
will soon get better and stronger; and besides, we 
may hear something in some other way before then. 
But the first thing is for you to get well and 
strong.” 

“I will go to bed now,” she repeated. “I am so 
tired.” 

The night passed quietly, and when the doctor 


Summer Da y s 


107 


came in the morning he thought her so much better 
that he said he would not come again till Saturday. 

“I am nearly worked to death,” he said, “and 
this place takes such a time to get to. If you and 
Miss Wentworth wanted to be quiet you have cer- 
tainly come to the right spot, Mr. Wentworth. So 
I won’t come again till Saturday, but if Miss Went- 
worth’s memory should return suddenly you had 
better either send or come to me at once. I don’t 
expect it will though now till she is thoroughly 
rested.” 

He had encouraged Esme to get up, and almost 
as soon as he had gone she appeared downstairs. 
She seemed in a very bright, cheerful mood, de- 
clared she felt perfectly well, and announced that 
she was not going to worry herself about anything, 
but was going to have a real good rest and quiet 
time. 

Fortunately the weather was fine and sunny, and 
that day and the next passed for Keith like a dream 
of delight. He could hardly believe he was the 
same man who a few days previously, hungry and 
in rags, weary and despairing, had slouched along 
the hill at the bottom of the road and then ap- 
proached this house to beg a crust of bread. Now 
he was living in it as though it were his own, with 
none to say him nay or challenge his right, and 
with him, for friend and companion, a charming 


108 The Solitary House 

girl who trusted her safety to his protection and 
whose dominion over him grew more absolute every 
day. Possibly the very precariousness of his sit- 
uation made his delight in each passing moment 
more keen and poignant. Since he knew well that 
any instant might see him thrown again into the 
world, outcast and a beggar, separated from Esme 
beyond all hope, he was all the more resolved to 
enjoy his good time while it lasted. 

Yet he told himself that if trouble came he had 
one card to play in the fact that he alone now 
knew where was hidden that great hoard of shining 
jewellery he had so strangely discovered. He 
could use that knowledge to make terms for him- 
self, he thought, and to establish his good faith, 
since but for him he had little doubt it would by 
now have been found and seized by whatever 
strange presence it was that haunted this house and 
these neighbouring woods. 

During all this time he never relaxed his pre- 
cautions, and at night he always slept on the landing 
at Esme’s door, rising many times during the hours 
of darkness to make sure that all was well. Nor 
would he either venture himself into the woods or 
permit Esme, as she wished to do, to make excur- 
sions into them. 

“All in good time,” he said. “I mean to find 
out what is really there some time, but not yet.” 


Summer Days 


109 


“I think sometimes,” Esme confessed, “that I 
have a feeling some one is watching us from there. 
I think sometimes I can see the bushes move, but 
perhaps it is the wind.” 

Keith had had the same idea, but he said nothing 
about it and began to talk about something else. 
Rather to his surprise Esme was proving herself a 
very capable housewife, and certainly whatever else 
she had forgotten she remembered perfectly her 
household skill. She took command of the domes- 
tic arrangements quite naturally, turned Keith out 
of the kitchen altogether, and when he protested 
that he wanted something to do showed him the 
garden, which certainly was beginning to need 
attention. 

Their mornings, therefore, were quite busy with 
Keith gardening and Esme busy about the house, 
though sometimes, as a great concession, she would 
allow him to come and help her for a little when 
the oil stove wanted filling or there was something 
heavy to be lifted. 

In the afternoon they generally sat out on the 
lawn in deck chairs, talking or reading, or Esme 
busy with needlework, while Keith treated himself 
to one of the fast diminishing stock of cigars from 
the box in the dining-room. After tea she would 
generally go to the piano and play, and as Keith 
had a good voice and had had lessons in singing, 


110 The Solitary House 


she would play an accompaniment for him while 
he sang, or, more rarely, he would persuade her to 
sing herself, though she had not a very good voice. 

Certainly no one to see them thus, sitting together 
on the lawn in the afternoons or at the piano during 
the long light evenings, could have dreamed what 
was the true state of the case, that one was a home- 
less, penniless tramp, and that the other did not 
even know her own name or where she came from, 
or that neither of them had the very least idea of 
what was going to happen next. 

No one ever came near them. Save for the little 
boy who brought them their morning’s milk, they 
might have been on a desert island cut off by widest 
seas from all mankind. It was the rarest event 
even for any one to pass along the road at the foot 
of the hill and, except for the doctor’s visits, they 
passed the whole week without even seeing any liv- 
ing creature. 

But they had the feeling, though they hardly 
ever spoke of it, that there was some one very 
near, some one lurking and watching in the wood, 
some one waiting there an opportunity that would 
perhaps present itself before long. 

“I am afraid sometimes,” Esme confessed one 
evening with a little shiver. 

“No reason to be,” Keith told her smilingly. 
“If there is some one dodging about that wood he 


Summer Days 111 

doesn’t mean to show himself. He knows better,” 
he added grimly. 

It was a fortnight they had mutually agreed they 
would wait before deciding on any future course 
of action and in the hope that Esme’s memory 
would return. But of that there was as yet no 
sign, though bodily and physically she appeared 
very well. Keith, though he knew he lived over 
a powder magazine that any accident at any mo- 
ment might explode, enjoyed every passing moment, 
and indeed thought to himself that this was as near 
Paradise as earthly men could hope to get. To 
him their existence was one long idyll, in the warm 
summer sunshine. With Esme’s gentle companion- 
ship, it seemed to him that everything was perfect. 
He even began to lose his sense of the strangeness 
and insecurity of their position, and to look upon * 
the house as his own, as though he had a right to 
be there. That the genuine owner of the place 
might return at any moment he had almost for- 
gotten ; and then one afternoon, when they had been 
sitting on the lawn and he had come indoors for 
a few minutes for some reason, leaving Esme sit- 
ting alone outside with her needlework, she fol- 
lowed him presently into the house. 

“There is a man just come out of the wood,” she 
said quickly; “he says his name is Wentworth; he 
says he wants to speak to you.” 


CHAPTER XI 


A Bribe 

It had come then, it had come at last, the moment 
so long anticipated, so long dreaded, inevitable 
always, he supposed, but at last almost forgotten. 
His time of joy was over; the moment to pay for it 
had come. 

“What is the matter?” Esme asked, looking at 
him; “aren’t you well?” 

He heard her voice as though it came from a 
long way off, but it helped to recall him to himself. 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Put your hand on the 
table there.” 

“Why?” she asked wonderingly, but obeyed him, 
for there was something curiously compelling in 
his tone. “Why do you look at me like that?” she 
asked. 

She had removed her hand as she spoke and he 
stooped and put his lips to the place where it had 
rested and stood upright, and without looking at 
her walked quickly away with a firm step, as a 
criminal going to his place of appointed death may 
112 


A Bribe 


113 


yet walk firmly and with a good presence, through 
the hall to the garden where it seemed that Mr* 
Wentworth waited. 

“It’s Esme I’ve got to think of,” he said to him- 
self; “unless they treat her fairly they shall never 
know what’s become of their jewels.” 

The stranger was standing in the middle of the 
lawn, and seeing Keith he came a step or two to- 
wards him. He was an unusual-looking man, very 
tall and very thin, with an impassive, pale, cadav- 
erous face on which the skin seemed stretched as 
tightly as is the parchment over a drum. His eyes 
were sunk deeply in his head and were small, but 
very bright, fierce and eager, as though the life 
banished from the rest of his death-like countenance 
had sought refuge there. He was clean shaven, but 
the growth of his beard was very strong and the 
hair showing beneath the skin gave his chin and the 
lower parts of his cheeks a bluish-black appearance. 
His hair was black, too, and very thick, and his 
limbs seemed too long for his body and not well 
fitted to it, so that he had a curiously awkward 
appearance. As he saw him the thought that 
flashed, instantly into Keith’s mind was: 

“This isn’t the man who used to be here; those 
clothes upstairs would never have fitted him.” 

He said aloud: 

“Good day; you wished to speak to me?” 


114 The Solitary House 


He spoke calmly and coolly, for by now he had 
quite regained his self-possession, and it seemed 
that his quiet manner slightly disconcerted the 
other. 

“Yes,” he said, “yes, I did.” 

“Won’t you sit down?” Keith asked, pointing to 
one of the deck chairs and at the same time occupy- 
ing one himself. 

“Thank you,” the other answered, and seated 
himself cautiously and a little as if afraid that the 
chair would break down under him; and as Keith 
watched his slow and slightly clumsy movements 
he thought again to himself : 

“Nor is this the man who tried to strangle me 
and who attacked Esme — he hasn’t the quickness 
and activity that fellow must have.” 

Aloud he said, as still the other did not speak: 

“Your name is Wentworth, I understand?” 

“The same as your own, is it not?” the stranger 
asked quickly. 

“Quite so,” agreed Keith, and added pleasantly: 
“And yet we are not relatives, I think?” 

The other did not answer, but he shot at Keith a 
sudden look from his sunken sharp little eyes that 
was full of doubt and menace and fear, as though 
this remark puzzled and even intimidated him. 
Like a flash of lightning the idea came to Keith: 

“Why, the fellow' does not know who I am or 


A Bribe 


115 


what I am doing here any more than I know who 
he is.” 

He felt his confidence greatly increased by this 
sudden conviction. He lay back in his chair as if 
quite at his ease, and looked calmly at his visitor, 
who was still silent and hesitating. 

“Yes?” he said, as though inviting him to state 
the object of his call. “Yes?” 

The stranger still did not answer. He sat scowl- 
ing and doubtful, pressing his great bony hands 
together, and now and again darting at Keith a 
quick and questioning look from under his shaggy 
brows. 

“May I ask . . .” began Keith and paused. “I 
understood you wished to say something to me?” 

“I expected to see another Mr. Wentworth,” an- 
swered the stranger. 

“Of course,” answered Keith politely; “I am 
exceedingly sorry fo*r your disappointment.” 

The stranger lifted his eyes and looked full at 
Keith, and there was in them a menace and a 
malignity quite extraordinary. Keith realized to 
the full that this was a dangerous and perhaps a 
desperate man, but he smiled lightly as he looked 
back and waited. All at once the stranger leaned 
forward and touched Keith on his knee with one of 
his great bony fingers. 

“Where is he?” he asked. 


116 The Solitary House 

Keith did not answer. 

“Where is he?” the other asked again, his man- 
ner full now of deep and fierce passion, of a bitter 
and consuming hatred. A dull flush had crept 
under the pallor of his dry and tightly drawn skin 
and he said again: “He isn’t here, where is 
he?” 

Keith had an inspiration. 

“If you care to leave a message . . .” he said 
and left the sentence unfinished. 

“Then he isn’t here?” the stranger asked, flash- 
ing a quick look at Keith. 

“As I think you said just now,” remarked Keith. 

“Did I? Perhaps I did,” said the other. “Are 
you a friend of his? Has he left you in charge 
here?” 

“Well, I suppose,” mused Keith, “I suppose I 
may say I am in charge here for the time being. 
But before I answer any more questions I think I 
am entitled to ask for the reason of your visit and 
your object in questioning me. I may as well tell 
you,” he added, “that I do not at present feel 
very much inclined to prolong this interview.” 

“You are on his side?” the stranger asked. 

“As I say, I do not feel inclined to answer any 
more questions till I know what they are for.” 

“Well, let me ask you one more,” retorted the 
stranger. “Are you rich?” 


A Bribe 


117 


“Not as rich as I should like to be, anyhow,” an- 
swered Keith. 

“Would a thousand pounds be any use to you?” 
asked the other slowly. 

“Are you hinting at a bribe?” asked Keith 
directly. 

“No, a reward for co-operation,” answered the 
stranger. 

“I appreciate the distinction,” smiled Keith. 
“Would the amount you mention be paid in money 
or in — jewellery?” 

“You could have it any way you liked — when 
you had earned it,” answered the stranger, looking 
puzzled. 

And Keith thought to himself that he at least 
knew nothing of the hidden hoard of jewellery the 
house had contained. 

“What should I have to do to earn it?” he asked. 
“You must excuse my curiosity, but when a perfect 
stranger drops in and offers one a thousand pounds 
one naturally wants to know the details.” 

“You would have ... to help me,” the stranger 
said. 

“Indeed, in an important matter presumably,” 
Keith remarked. “In what way? I like to be 
precise.” 

“First of all by telling me where Dick Went- 
worth is,” the stranger said, and he pronounced the 


118 The Solitary House 

name with a certain accent of hatred and suppressed 
rage and with a gleam in his small, sunken eyes. 

“Sorry, but I am afraid I* can’t do that,” an- 
swered Keith, “for the simple reason that I don’t 
know.” 

“You don’t expect me to believe that,” said the 
other roughly. “Or Mrs. Wentworth then, where 
is she?” 

“I don’t know that either; haven’t the least 
idea,” Keith assured him. 

The stranger got angrily to his feet. 

“You lie,” he said. 

Keith rose to his feet, too, and they faced each 
other. 

“No doubt it’s purely prejudice,” he said lazily, 
“but there you are, we all have our little fads, and 
it’s one of mine that I don’t allow people to use 
that expression to me. You will apologize there- 
fore — or ” 

“Or what?” the other sneered. 

“Or there is going to be a bit of a dust up be- 
tween us,” Keith answered. 

There was a moment’s pause, and the two men 
eyed each other closely. Keith was powerfully 
built and exceedingly active, and he had never yet 
met an adversary to whom he could not render a 
good account of himself. But he recognized that 


A Bribe 


119 


he was now faced with a man whose great height 
and remarkable length of limb were likely to render 
him no mean adversary. His eyes, too, were those 
of a fighter, fierce and hot, and Keith, watching 
them intently so as to be ready for any swift at- 
tack, held himself prepared for a struggle that he 
felt would be no easy one. But on a sudden the 
other laughed, a harsh, disconcerting laugh that had 
the remarkable quality of leaving his pale and 
cadaverous features quite unmoved. 

“Oh, all right, I apologize,” he said. “After 
all, you are not the game I am after; you are not 
my meat. So you refuse me your help; you don’t 
want my thousand pounds I offer?” 

“I never said so,” answered Keith; “but I can’t 
earn it by answering questions I don’t know the 
answers to.” 

“Well, if you get to know,” said the stranger, 
“or if you feel you are willing to do some work for 
good pay, just tie a bit of white rag or a handker- 
chief, or something like that, to one of those bushes 
under the trees there. You will soon hear.” 

“Very likely,” answered Keith; “I can quite 
believe it; but might it not be dangerous?” and as 
he spoke, watching the other closely, he put his 
hands to his throat with a gesture as if affecting 
strangulation. 


120 The Solitary House 


Not a muscle of the stranger’s face changed, hut 
a light flickered in his eyes for a moment and Keith 
saw he understood. 

“No danger at all, I assure you,” he answered; 
“those who are my friends are friends to each 
other.” 

“So it is a friend of yours, is it,” exclaimed 
Keith angrily, stepping nearer to him, “who is 
dodging about over there?” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” retorted the 
stranger; and all at once, for Keith’s looks were 
very threatening, a revolver showed in his hand. 
“You had better keep off,” he said coldly. 

Keith hesitated, tempted to dash in and risk it, 
for bullets miss often enough. But he thought of 
Esme most likely watching from the house, and he 
remembered that he was the only link that existed 
between her and the world. Again for a moment 
the two men looked at each other, their eyes fierce 
and alert, their breathing short and quick, and then 
all at once the stranger put back his head and 
uttered his harsh, disconcerting laugh that never 
seemed to affect his features in the least. 

“Come,” he said, “don’t let’s be such fools. 
What have we to fight about? I dare say you 
know this is a big business. If you stand in with 
me, you share. If not, you don’t. That’s all.” 

“I was only wondering,” said Keith, “if I ought 


A Bribe 


121 


not to keep you and hand you over to the police.” 

“The police?” repeated the other and seemed 
genuinely surprised. “What for? I think this an 
affair we shall all want to keep away from the 
police. Good day, and think over what I said. If 

you feel you want that thousand pounds ” 

“I should like to see it, anyhow,” retorted Keith 
with a certain emphasis on the word “see.” 

“You think I haven’t got it?” the stranger asked. 
“Man,” he cried with a sudden note of exultation, 
“I shall be worth a million before this is over,” 
and with a sudden gesture full of an indescribable 
exultation and the fiercest energy he turned and 
walked away with his long, quick, clumsy stride. 


CHAPTER XII 


Two Days 

Keith watched him go till he vanished beneath the 
shelter of the trees, and the thought came to him 
that it would be wise to follow and see where he 
went and if he communicated with whoever or 
whatever it was of mystery that lurked there. But 
though Keith made a step to carry out this inten- 
tion, then he stopped, remembering that he dared 
not leave Esme alone, even for the shortest time. 

It seemed to him that on the whole this inter- 
view had only served to make still more obscure 
the strange and bewildering situation in which he 
found himself, and what puzzled him most of all 
was his conviction that his own presence here was 
equally puzzling and mysterious to his visitor, who 
yet had not dared to challenge it in any way. Still, 
Keith was convinced that the man knew something, 
probably indeed a great deal, concerning these 
events, and in especial he was sure he knew about 
the being, whoever or whatever it might be, that 
lurked and watched and waited in the wood about 
122 


Two Days 


123 


the house. It was equally plain, however, that he 
knew nothing of the existence of that hoard of 
jewellery, to obtain which Keith felt convinced had 
been the aim of the attempt made upon his life. 
Another puzzling point was that while Esme must 
undoubtedly be linked in some way with the house 
and its vanished tenants and the mystery that hung 
about them, and while precisely the same must be 
true of the stranger who had just gone away, yet 
he and she apparently knew nothing of each other, 
since he did not seem to have recognized her, and 
her memory had been stirred in no way by his 
coming. 

With the feeling then that the darkness and 
mystery all around were deeper and more puzzling 
even than before, Keith went back slowly to the 
house and to the drawing-room, where he found 
Esme sitting with some needlework in her hand. 

She was making little pretence at working, how- 
ever, and as he entered she looked up very quickly 
and eagerly, but without speaking. Plainly she 
was hoping that the stranger’s visit had thrown light 
upon things and perhaps upon her unknown iden- 
tity, and she seemed greatly excited and disturbed. 
Sitting down beside her Keith said: 

“I don’t know what he wanted. I couldn’t get 
anything out of him.” 

She looked very disappointed. 


124 The Solitary House 


“But didn’t he . . .?” she began and paused. 
“You were talking a long time,” she said. 

“I was trying to get something out of him,” 
Keith repeated. “I think he knows something 
about what’s going on in the woods yonder, but he 
would not say anything. I hinted at going to the 
police, but he never turned a hair. I am almost 
sorry I let him go. I wish I had kept him here.” 

“How do you mean? How could you?” she 
asked. 

“I believe he is up to mischief of some sort; I 
didn’t like the fellow’s looks,” answered Keith 
moodily; “and there’s lots of room in the cellar.” 

“Good — gracious!” she exclaimed, staring at 
him in frank amazement. “You don’t mean . . . 
but you aren’t serious?” 

“Yes, I am,” he answered. “I feel desperate 
enough, goodness knows, and I am sure he knows 
something. After he had been in the cellar a bit 
with nothing to eat or drink he might have grown 
communicative. Or his friend over there in the 
wood might have come to ask about him.” 

She considered this very gravely and with cheeks 
that had become a little pale. She had laid her 
needlework down and her hands were clasped 
tightly together. 

“Why do you feel desperate?” she asked gently. 
When he did not answer she continued : 


Two Days 


125 


“You know you have never told me anything: 
why you are living here all alone, or who was here 
with you before I came. I don’t even know if 
you are married. I thought you were at first. 
Some one was here with you before me?” 

“No,” he answered, “no one at all has been 
here with me except you, and I am certainly not 
married,” and as he said this he looked up quickly, 
and their eyes met, till she looked away with a 
flush rising on her pale cheek. “I hope to be some 
day,” he said and stopped, appalled all at once by 
his own words as a swift realization of his position 
and of hers came into his mind. 

“Do you?” she remarked coldly and indiffer- 
ently, taking up her needlework again. “I sup- 
pose lots of people have that idea.” All at once 
she sprang to her feet. “Oh, I shall go mad,” she 
cried. “I think I am mad. I must, I must, I 
must remember. Oh, why can’t you find out some- 
thing about me?” 

She sat down as abruptly as she had sprung up, 
hiding her face in her hands and quivering and 
trembling from head to foot with the violence of 
her emotions. He sat quite still, staring moodily 
in front of him. In truth, he did not know what 
he could do, considering his own situation was what 
it was and that he had no right even to the clothes 
upon his back; and he understood also that for 


126 The Solitary House 

some time she had realized that there was some- 
thing strange and unusual about him and his posi- 
tion there. Without looking up she said in accents 
of intense and bitter reproach: 

“I have been so hoping you would tell me and 
you have never said a word, not a word.” 

“There is only one thing I can tell you,” he 
answered, deeply stung, and feeling that she had 
cause for complaint against him, “and that is that 
you were here once before. You came the night 
before; you seemed very angry and upset about 
something — I don’t know what; and you asked me 
where your sister was ” 

“My sister! I have a sister!” she cried ex- 
citedly, forgetting for the moment her anger with 
him. “Oh, then there is some one; I’m not all 
alone; there is some one. What else did I say?” 

He told her quickly the story of her first visit to 
the house, and she was very excited indeed and 
eagerly interested. It seemed to be a great com- 
fort to her to know that she had spoken of having 
a sister, for she had apparently conceived a secret 
fear that she might be as lonely and desolate of all 
friends and relatives in reality as she was in ap- 
pearance. 

“Where can she be? Who can she be?” she 
kept repeating. “I was looking for her, that is why 
I came here?” 


Two Days 


127 


“Yes,” he answered, “and I think myself that 
most likely she is the lady whose things are in your 
bedroom.” 

“Yes, yes,” Esme agreed, “but then you . . . 
you . . .” she looked at him with doubt and won- 
der. “This is your house; you must know,” she 
said. 

“No, I don’t,” he answered. “The house isn’t 
mine at all. I am a stranger here; in a way an 
intruder, I suppose. I can’t very well explain; 
besides, you’ll be making yourself ill again. You 
know the doctor said you were to avoid all excite- 
ment for a long time.” He came to a sudden deter- 
mination. “Let us wait two more days,” he said. 
“That is all — no more. I have an idea that some- 
thing may turn up now. We have had one visitor; 
perhaps we may have another. If we don’t I will 
tell you everything; at least, unless you have made 
yourself ill again. But there isn’t much I can tell 
you, you know; practically nothing in fact. Still, 
you shall know it all, and then we will make up our 
minds what to do. Perhaps we ought to go to the 
police and ask them to help us to find your friends. 
But I didn’t want to do that if I could help it.” 

“Oh, no,” she exclaimed, obviously startled by 
the idea; “oh, no, I wouldn’t like to do that,” and 
though a little reluctantly she agreed to wait the two 
days that he suggested. 


128 The Solitary House 

For his part he did not really think it very likely 
that anything would occur to make the situation 
plainer in these two days, and at bottom he desired 
the delay simply because he wished for a respite 
before being obliged to leave for ever this strange 
and precarious garden of delight into which he had 
so wonderfully strayed. Soon, he knew, it must be 
over, and he was very sure that as soon as they 
applied to the police authorities for help his story 
would have to be told and he would find himself 
arrested. 

But now that he had obtained the eight and forty 
hours he had asked for he set himself to forget the 
doubts and mysteries that surrounded them, and to 
enjoy every passing moment. 

At first Esme was irresponsive and inclined to 
brood, but before long she yielded to the infection 
of his mood and they became like two careless, 
happy children, living only in each hour as it came 
and only for the enjoyment to be got from it. 

For the first time they left the vicinity of the 
house and made a long excursion into the bare' 
downland that lay behind, beyond the wood. They 
took sandwiches with them and stayed out a long 
time, enjoying to the full what they both felt to be 
something of a release. 

Thereby also they missed the doctor, who came 
a little out of his time and left a somewhat hurried 


Two Days 


129 


and slightly ill-tempered note to say that he had 
been during their absence. 

The weather was perfect, fine and warm and yet 
not too hot, and for Keith at least the hours slipped 
by as in a golden dream. Esme, too, strove hard 
to put all anxious care behind her and to live only 
in the present, telling herself that this was her best 
hope of regaining her memory. On the whole she 
was successful, and their content and happiness 
during this time was very great, and made all the 
more poignant, with a trembling edge of delight 
that was as keen as pain — for Keith, by his certain 
knowledge that the end was coming quickly; for 
Esme, by the background of her doubts and terrors 
and her great fear that she would never recover 
her sense of identity or know who she was. 

Neither of them ever forgot those two days, the 
sunny hours in the garden, their long walks, the 
meals that they prepared together, their washings 
up in the scullery, the time when Esme forgot to 
put the tea in the pot so that nothing came but hot 
water when she tried to pour out, the morning when 
she left him for a moment with the bacon and he 
managed to char it into unrecognizable cinders, or 
that special hour with a flavour all its own when he 
and she picked raspberries together in the garden 
and her mood was very soft and gentle. 

It was when they had eaten as much of the rich 


130 The Solitary House 

fruit as they wished that they went back to where 
their chairs were standing on the lawn. There she 
sat down and he lay on the grass at her feet and 
began abruptly, and with no word of preparation, to 
tell her his story. 

He told of his birth and upbringing and of his 
school days that had been no different from those 
of any other boy belonging to the fortunate classes. 
He told her of his father’s sudden death that had 
left him penniless and cut short abruptly his univer- 
sity career. He told her of his life as a clerk and 
of how he had loathed his office, of his brief expe- 
rience on the tramp steamer, of his encounter with 
his skipper and the policeman, and of how he sup- 
posed that a warrant was out for his arrest therefor. 
He described his decision to tramp back to London, 
the bitter mood of recklessness that had grown upon 
him, how he had found this house derelict, and how 
it had seemed to him a first-class joke to take ad- 
vantage of the food and shelter it offered, and he 
told her of his experiences in it. 

“I thought I would appoint myself caretaker,” he 
said. “I thought it rather a lark at first, and after 
the attempt to murder me — I am jolly sure murder 
was meant — and after I found all that jewellery, I 
made up my mind to stay on and see the thing 
through. It was plain there was something queer 
about it all, and I thought something would be sure 


Two Days 


131 


to happen soon. But what happened was — you — 
and when you couldn’t remember things I was all 
up a tree again. But now I think we must come to 
some decision; we can’t stop here for ever. Grub 
is beginning to run low for one thing. For my 
own part I can’t see what else to do except to go to 
the police and make a clean breast of the whole 
thing and see what they say. Shall I?” 


CHAPTER XIII 


Their Decision 

After a time she said : 

“But they would put you in prison because of 
your fighting your captain?” 

“I suppose so,” he agreed. 

“It was very wrong of you to behave like that,” 
she said with great severity, “and silly, too, and I 
think you ought to be very ashamed.” 

“Well, I’m not,” he answered sulkily. “If any 
one tries to do me, I’m jolly well going to punch 
his head if I get the chance.” 

“Yes, that’s all you care about,” she complained; 
“you never think of anything else. If there’s any- 
thing you don’t like your only idea is to fly in a 
rage and hit. it as if ... as if ... as though 
there was nothing else in the world but knocking 
people about and banging them and being brutal.” 

“Oh, I know you think I’m a brute,” he said, get- 
ting to his feet in a great temper, “and so I am, I 
dare say. It is very good of you to be so plain- 
132 


Their Decision 


133 


spoken, and we’ll go straight to the police, and 
they’ll quite agree with you, I’m sure.” 

“Now you’re just being silly,” she answered in a 
tone nearly as angry as his own. “Please sit down 
and try to talk sensibly.” 

He stood with his hands in his pockets, glower- 
ing at her. 

“I don’t see why you want to slang me so,” he 
complained. “All this isn’t so jolly easy for me.” 

“Well, and is it easy for me?” she asked 
heatedly, “but of course you never think of that. 
You just get into a temper and go very red and 
stand there and won’t listen to a word I say.” 

“Good . . . gracious,” he gasped, fairly over- 
whelmed by the monstrous injustice of this last ac- 
cusation, and then she took out her pocket hand- 
kerchief and his overthrow was absolute and com- 
plete. 

“Oh, I say,” he pleaded, “don’t do that.” 

“I think,” she sniffed, “I think you’re awfully 
unkind.” 

“I didn’t mean to be,” he protested, not daring 
to rebut her charge more directly. “I’m awfully 
sorry,” he muttered. 

“Really?” she asked. 

“Yes, indeed,” he declared earnestly. 

“You won’t again?” she demanded. 

“Oh, no,” he promised, though what he wasn’t 


134 The S o lit a r y House 


to do again he hadn’t the least idea, but she seemed 
satisfied and permitted him to catch the faintest 
flicker of a smile and then held out her hand. 

He held it for a moment and wondered if he 
dared kiss it, and she knew well what was in his 
mind and hoped he would and was all ready to 
snatch it away at the first sign of such an attempt 
and to administer to him a sharp rebuke therefor. 
But his daring did not run to such extremes, and 
she, seeing how afraid he was, wondered greatly 
and was afraid herself, not understanding, so that 
between them there was a silence, till on her side 
fear rose to something like a panic, and all at once, 
in a voice unsteady and quivering, she said: 

“Well, we must decide what we must do.” She 
added gravely, as with a new insight into their 
situation: “I think we are the two most alone peo- 
ple in the world.” 

“I think we must get help somehow,” he said 
slowly. “The police might be able ” 

“No,” she interrupted, very emphatically, “we 
mustn’t do anything like that; we mustn’t go to 
them till we know more. You say I said I was 
looking for my sister when I came here before, and 
that I seemed very upset . . . well, I think most 
likely I should have gone to the police then unless 
there had been some reason why I shouldn’t. We 
must know more before we do anything of that sort. 


Their Decision 


135 


We might do a lot of harm; we are so much in the 
dark; we must be careful. And then, if they did 
put you in prison ... I should be more alone than 
ever. I should have nobody at all.” 

His heart leaped when he heard her say this 
and he was silent, though she had hoped he would 
make an answer. Presently he remarked: 

64 We can’t go on living here.” 

“No,” she agreed. “I’ve been thinking . . .” 

But what she had been thinking she did not say, 
and he continued presently: 

“I’ve been wondering if I could make a thor- 
ough search of the wood and find out what there 
really is there. We might get to know something 
that way. Only I daren’t leave you alone, you see. 
You wouldn’t be safe even in the house.” 

“I could go somewhere else,” she said. “Sup- 
pose we leave here and I get a room somewhere, in 
that village we came across yesterday. And then 
while I stayed there if you came back . . . there 
wouldn’t be any danger, would there?” 

“Not to me,” answered Keith grimly. “Yes, 
that’s a good idea; only a room would have to be 
paid for, and I’ve got no money.” 

“I have a little,” she said. “The nurse found it 
when she was undressing me; it would be enough 
for a few days.” 

“If we leave here,” he said presently and a little 


136 The Solitary House 


awkwardly, “I should have to change back to my 
own rags. I couldn’t go off in things that aren’t 
mine.” 

They talked a little more and agreed that she 
was to get a room in the village a few miles distant 
they had come upon during one of their long walks, 
and that while she remained there he was to return 
and do his best to solve the mystery of the wood 
that would, they hoped, helped to solve the greater 
mystery that seemed to surround so impenetrably 
this house where they were living. 

She went indoors to make her few and simple 
preparations, and he found the clothing he had had 
on when first he came to this strange place and 
changed for it the well-cut suit of good tweed he 
had worn lately. Very nervous, and wondering 
very much what Esme would think of him, he re- 
turned to the lawn and waited there till she emerged 
from the house in her trim cycling suit with loose 
jacket and a short skirt that displayed her small 
feet and slim, well shaped ankles. He had on now 
a woollen jersey that was anything but clean, 
trousers that had been mended in more places than 
one, and clumsy, badly worn boots. He was bare- 
headed, too, for his cap had seemed to him so filthy 
that he had thrown it away, and she thought that in 
this rough working attire he showed to better ad- 
vantage than ever she had seen him before. He 


Their Decision 


137 


looked vigorous and capable, his form athletic, his 
face frank and keen, his eyes very clear, bright and 
steady. But now he was shaved and washed and 
tidy. Had she seen him in that dress covered with 
dust from the road and with three days’ growth of 
stubble on cheeks that had not been washed for 
nearly as long, her impression might have been dif- 
ferent. ** 

“Well?” he said, with a little nervous laugh. 

“I like you better now,” she said, holding out 
her hand ; “you are really you now.” 

He had mended her bicycle as best he could, 
though very imperfectly, and they had decided that 
when she reached the village they were bound for 
she was to say that she was on a bicycle tour, that 
she had had a fall and damaged her machine and 
shaken herself, and that she wanted to rest for a 
day or two. 

They started on their expedition at once, for 
there was no time to lose, and at the end of nearly 
two hours’ sharp walking across the bare and lonely 
moors — during the whole of the two hours they 
passed no house and saw no sign of human presence 
— they reached the little village that was their 
destination. There they parted, and Esme went on 
down the road, while he lay by the wayside and 
waited till he saw that she had reached the village. 
H^ saw her go into one of the houses, probably 


138 The Solitary House 


the village shop, though of that he could not be 
certain, and then come out again after an interval 
in the company of a woman and go across to a 
cottage near by. There it seemed she stayed, for 
she did not appear again, and satisfied that she had 
found shelter, he rose and tramped back again 
across the downs that now seemed to him lonely and 
desolate indeed. 

He had laid his plans in consultation with Esme, 
and they had decided that he was to wait till dark 
and then slip through the wood as quietly and 
secretly as he could to the house. If they had been 
watched and their departure noted, as they believed 
would be the case, the unknown from the wood 
might actually be in the house when Keith arrived 
back and so be easily secured. If not, Keith meant 
to lie hidden in some favourable spot and wait his 
opportunity to take the unknown by surprise. And 
he was very firmly determined that whoever it was 
had made of these woods hiding place he would 
discover him somehow and force from him a full 
explanation of his object in so doing. 

When he was near the wood Keith lay down and 
waited till it was dark, and then in the quiet night 
he rose and very silently and cautiously, treading so 
that he should not be heard, stooping down that his 
tall figure might not betray him against the sky, 


Their Decision 


139 


he came presently to the trees and vanished in the 
darkness in their midst. 

His progress was very slow, for he had to be 
careful of every step, for fear some slip should 
betray him, and very often he paused and listened 
intently, or stooping down, and with his eyes close 
to the ground, he peered intently into the darkness 
to see if there were anything that moved. But he 
saw nothing, heard nothing, and so with infinite 
caution he made his way through the night, under 
the trees, till he had gone three-fourths of the way 
through the wood and had come to a part where 
the undergrowth was very dense and the trees thick 
overhead. 

The darkness here was intense, the silence com- 
plete. Even the faint and distant rustlings that 
sometimes had told him of little wild things slipping 
away before him were not audible here, and the 
very breeze that hitherto had sometimes stirred 
the branches of the trees did not seem to penetrate 
so far. He stood still, and there came to him a 
very strong conviction that he was no longer alone, 
but that some one or something was very close at 
hand, something strange and evil, watching him 
intently. So strong was this idea that he stooped 
a little and waited, expecting to be attacked, and 
he thought he saw something in the darkness close 


/ 

140 The Solitary House 

at his right hand. But when he put out his hand it 
touched only a tree trunk, and when he listened 
he heard nothing. For a long time he waited so, 
and still that impression remained that he was not 
alone. At last on his hands and knees he began to 
crawl forward, and when he did so he was sure that 
he heard a movement on his left. 

But what it was he could not tell, and when he 
waited and listened he could hear nothing, nothing 
save the beating of his heart, for he was afraid. 

Fear had come upon him in the darkness and the 
silence, and he wrestled against it with all his 
strength. Again and again he was on the point of 
springing to his feet and running madly away, never 
to return; again and again he fought down the 
impulse, and ever it came back once more. Yet he 
did not know what it was he feared; it was the kind 
of shrinking terror a little child may have in the 
dark; it was as though memory of all the horrors 
our forefathers have suffered in dark woods came 
flooding back into his soul and overbore it. And 
as he lay and sweated from every pore and shook 
and was afraid, he heard some one laugh a little 
way away, and at once all his fear departed and left 
him utterly. 

The laugh had been low and bestial and very 
horrid, but at least it was something real, tangible, 
human perhaps, something familiar and known. 


Their Decision 


141 


He lay quiet and listened; and when it was not 
repeated he got to his feet and went on cautiously 
and carefully, but taking less elaborate precaution 
than he had done before. For now he was per- 
suaded his presence there was known. 

All at once he came to the edge of the wood 
before he was aware; and stepping from under 
the trees he felt the fresh night breeze upon his 
brow and found the surrounding darkness less in- 
tense. Over his head, too, shone now the blessed 
stars, and the young moon rode high towards the 
west. And in front of him was the house that he 
and Esme had left carefully locked up, with every 
door and window shuttered and barred and bolted, 
but that now was a blaze of light from roof to 
ground, with every door and window wide open to 
the night. 


CHAPTER XIV 


New-comers 

He remained for some time in the shadow by the 
fringe of the wood, crouching down and watching 
and asking himself who it could be that had ar- 
rived during his absence. One thing at least was 
clear, that the new-comers did not wish to keep their 
presence, secret, for there was not a window where 
lights did not show brightly, and in the dark night 
on the dark hill-side the place showed up like a 
beacon. But, in spite of all this illumination, there 
was no other sign of occupation, no sound of any 
sort, no figures showing at the lighted windows or 
passing in or out at the doors. Solitary and quiet 
the house shone against the surrounding darkness 
as before it had hidden in the night, and seemed 
no less aloof, no less impenetrably secret. 

Very slowly, very cautiously, Keith crept forward 
till he came to the hedge surrounding the garden. 
He knew now where there was a gap in this hedge a 
little farther along, and he found it and crept 
through and lay in the shelter of the hedge on its 
inner side. 


142 


New-comers 


143 


From every window, and from the open door, the 
light poured out in beams that fell across the lawn 
and garden in long streams of bright illumination, 
but in between these rays the night still remained 
intense and black. For a few minutes Keith 
waited, but all was very quiet; no sound came from 
the house, no one appeared to move within it. It 
seemed as silent and deserted now in its glowing 
illumination as ever it had done before, and along 
the dark patches that lay between the rays coming 
from each window Keith made his way slowly up 
to it. 

The first window he came to was that of the 
kitchen, and very cautiously he drew near and 
peeped through. All within appeared to him to be 
exactly as when he and Esme had departed, except 
for the fact that the lamp on the table was now 
alight and burning brightly. But nothing else 
seemed to have been touched; he remembered two 
knives lying on the table that he had put down 
there that morning, and the plates and cups were 
still on the dresser as they had left them after 
washing up. 

For a long time he waited there, watching and 
listening, and hearing and seeing nothing. He 
drew away at last and went round to the front and 
looked in at the drawing-room window. There, 
too, all was as it had been when they had gone, ex- 


144 The Solitary House 


cept that the tall lamp near the piano was lighted 
and burning brightly. Nothing in the room seemed 
to have been touched. The big arm-chair stood 
where he had pushed it back on rising from it. 
Esme’s music was still open on the piano. It was 
as though whoever had been there had been content 
to light the lamps and depart again, leaving them 
burning, and this seemed to Keith a strange and 
even terrifying thing. 

He wondered whether to enter the house and ex- 
amine it and extinguish these lamps that for no 
apparent reason flooded every room with their use- 
less and haunting light. He almost decided to do 
so, and he went on a little and saw through the open 
door into the empty hall, where the big swinging 
lamp glowed brightly. He went on farther to the 
dining-room windows, and when he looked through 
them he saw that there was within, seated at the 
table, a tall handsome man of about his own size 
and age, with a glass in one hand and a bottle of 
whisky in the other, and drinking the raw spirit 
with a sort of sullen and desperate resolution. 

The light from the lamp shone full upon him and 
showed his regular, well -formed features of almost 
feminine delicacy and beauty, his soft curly hair 
and drooping silken moustache, and his pale and 
desperate expression. He scarcely moved while 
Keith watched him; he never once looked up; but 


New-comers 


145 


with his eyes fixed moodily on the table and his 
hands clasping bottle and glass he, like an au- 
tomaton recently set going, poured out more spirit 
and drank it off and lapsed again instantly into 
his former condition of immobility. 

Of all the strange sights that he had seen of late, 
this seemed to Keith the strangest. Who could he 
be who, having come to this remote and secret place, 
and having lighted every lamp in it so that it blazed 
afar like a beacon, now sat in the night made like 
day and seemed resolved in sullen despair to drink 
himself into insensibility? 

While Keith thus in the night without watched 
and wondered, and while within the lighted room 
the stranger with his dreadful and mechanic reg- 
ularity poured whisky down his throat, there be- 
came audible all at once another sound, that of a 
soft and light tread in the hall without. The door 
handle turned and Keith drew back a little, afraid 
all at once, for their came rushing back into his 
mind a memory of how the woman nursing Esme 
had declared that the door had opened and the Devil 
himself peeped in at her. 

And it seemed to him that this spectacle of the 
solitary and silent stranger drinking in gloom and 
despair through the night was one a fiend might 
well wish to witness. 

But when the door had opened there came in, 


146 The Solitary House 

doubtfully and with hesitation, a very tall and 
lovely woman with a pale oval face showing fea- 
tures of classic regularity and a form of almost 
perfect grace. She was very dark, with mag- 
nificent masses of dark hair coiled about her head 
and dark, handsome eyes, and at present she seemed 
in great alarm and distress, for her breath was 
coming and going in great gasps, her hands shook 
visibly, her whole appearance was of terror and 
great fear. 

The man seated at the table either did not hear 
her entrance or would not heed it, for he did not 
look up when she entered, and once more, with his 
odd lifeless monotony of gesture, he poured out 
more of the whisky and drank it off and put down 
the empty glass. He still never glanced at the 
window, and she came slowly up to the table and 
leaned on it with both hands and looked at him. 
Keith was not sure but he thought she made an 
effort to speak, for she moistened her lips with her 
tongue once or twice. But apparently no sound 
came, and the man, though he must have been aware 
of her presence, did not look up. 

Twice more the man, in the same mechanical 
and monotonous way, as though he had set himself 
the completion of a dull and boring but necessary 
task, poured out and drank off more of the raw 
spirit while the woman remained leaning on the 


N e iv - comers 


147 


table with both hands and watching him from tragic 
eyes. To the hidden observer without the scene 
was one of extraordinary and dramatic interest, and 
yet what it would mean, who these two persons 
could be, and why they should be in such apparent 
terror and despair, for what reason they had il- 
lumined the house so brightly only, as it seemed, 
that the man might drink himself into insensibility 
while the woman looked hopelessly on, Keith could 
not imagine for the life of him. 

Once the woman moved slightly and made what 
seemed a timid attempt to take away the bottle of 
whisky. But the man, without speaking, clenched 
his fist threateningly and gave her such a glare of 
rage that she drew back hastily and made no further 
effort to interfere. An arm-chair was near the 
fireplace, and she sat down in it and watched, 
while he drank again, monotonously as before but 
perhaps a little more quickly. 

At last, without any warning or apparent change, 
he rolled off his chair, and fell on the floor under 
the table, totally intoxicated. The woman rose to 
her feet and stood with clasped hands looking down 
at him. The light from the lamp shone full upon 
her pale, exquisite features, and Keith saw that 
there was on them an expression of the uttermost 
despair. He wondered whether he ought to make 
his presence known and offer help. But while he 


148 The Solitary House 


hesitated she moved suddenly and came to the 
window and, without noticing him where he stood in 
the shadow, drew the shutters to and barred and 
bolted them. He moved away, and he heard her in 
succession close and lock the front door, bar the 
shutters of the other windows, and then he saw that 
she put out all the lights. One only remained, that 
in the bedroom above, for there a gleam still pene- 
trated through a crack of the shutters. 

To Keith the rapidity and completeness with 
which she made the house secure the moment that 
her companion had completed his task of intoxicat- 
ing himself appeared as strange as her previous 
silence and immobility. He felt very tired and a 
little cold, though the night was warm enough. He 
did not know in the least what to do, and he went 
and sat down under the hedge of the garden. It 
was late, long past midnight, but the gleam of the 
solitary lamp in the bedroom upstairs still re- 
mained, and he watched it for some time, wonder- 
ing what the scene he had just witnessed could mean 
and thinking of the position of the woman alone in 
so remote a place with, for sole companion, a man 
hopelessly drunk. He could not help asking him- 
self what she knew of the mysteries and dangers 
that seemed to lurk about this place, and he won- 
dered if she had been so swift and careful to make 
every door and window secure because she, too, 


New-comers 


149 


was aware of the brooding and evil presence haunt- 
ing the woods around. 

And was she likely to be this night in such peril 
as for instance he had been when he had been 
awakened by the pressure of murderous fingers 
upon his throat? 

He wondered again whether to knock at the door 
and offer help, but he reflected that such an offer 
at such an hour from a total stranger would not 
be likely to appear very reassuring; and after he 
had waited for a time and seen and heard nothing, 
and when at last the light in the window above dis- 
appeared, he made up his mind to go back to the 
wood and find some shelter there under the trees 
where he could rest for a few hours. 

He went very slowly and cautiously, gliding like 
a shadow through the night and often pausing and 
dropping on his hands and knees to listen and peer 
around lest there should be any following or watch- 
ing him. But so far as he could tell he was 
quite alone and no other living creature was any- 
where^near. 

Satisfied that he had at last secured the ad- 
vantage of concealment from whoever or whatever 
it was that had followed him so persistently before, 
he found for himself a comfortable and well-shel- 
tered spot under some close-growing bush. The 
branches and leaves overhead were so thick as to 


150 The Solitary House 

give a protection almost like that of a roof, and the 
mould beneath was soft to lie on and quite dry. 
The position, too, was favourable, for in front the 
ground was open and level, and it was not far from 
the house whose dark mass he could faintly discern 
against the sky. He decided that first thing in the 
morning he would return there and see what he 
could find out, and he was on the very point of 
falling off to sleep when he heard a low voice call- 
ing him from a little distance. 

“Keith,” it said, “Keith,” and then again with 
an accent of haste and pleading: “Keith! Keith! 
Keith!” 


<v 


PART THREE 

















CHAPTER XV 


Captured 

To Keith this small voice that out of the wood and 
the night called to him by name seemed at first so 
incredible and unreal that he hardly believed he 
really heard it. But when it came again, low, per- 
sistent, compelling, he felt that he must answer it, 
and he had the idea that it came from no earthly 
source. 

For what human creature could there be that 
knew his name and could be present in that wood 
that night to call him thus by his name? 

He felt the flesh creep as it were upon his bones, 
the hair bristle on the scalp of his head. 

“Yes,” he answered, “yes,” and held his breath 
in utter fear of what awful answer that might be. 

“Keith,” the low voice called again, “Keith.” 

This time he did not answer, but as though im- 
pelled by a force he could not resist he began to 
move in the direction whence the mysterious sum- 
mons seemed to come. 

It still called him as he went, till he reached a 
153 


154 The Solitary House 


spot where a great oak grew, and all at once from 
under it a bright light flashed and shone upon him 
for an instant and vanished, and the voice he had 
heard before said, a trifle more loudly this time: 

“So it is you, you again.” 

The extremity of superstitious terror that Keith 
had endured fled instantly, for now the voice 
sounded human and even dimly familiar, and the 
sudden light he recognized for that of an electric 
torch flashed on and off again. But he was still a 
little shaken and very puzzled, for he did not know 
who this could be who was aware of his name and 
called him by it so oddly, and he said in a voice that 
was not quite so steady as usual: 

“Who are you? What do you want?” 

“I want to know what you are doing here,” the 
other answered, and this time Keith thought there 
was something in the tone and rough manner of 
speaking that he recognized. 

“I think I could ask you that,” he observed. 

“I asked first,” the other said, “and I think you 
had better answer me. You are playing a dan- 
gerous game, my man, you know.” 

“Am I?” said Keith. 

He moved a step or two forward to the great 
oak against whose trunk he leaned, thinking that it 
might be as well to have a certain shelter for his 
back. He noticed that just over his head was a 


Captured 


155 


huge branch with an enormous lump or swelling of 
some sort on it, and he could just discern the dim 
and shadowy form of his interlocutor at a short 
distance. 

“Playing a dangerous game, am I?” he repeated. 
“Let me see, I think you came up to the house the 
other afternoon, didn’t you? You were rather lib- 
eral with your offers, if I remember rightly. And 
you said your name was Wentworth, didn’t you?” 

The other did not answer, but Keith was certain 
now that he was right, and that this stranger of the 
wood was identical with his visitor of a few days 
previously. 

“An unexpected pleasure to meet you again,” 
Keith continued after a short silence and in a brisk 
and cheerful tone, for it was an immense relief to 
him that his recent terror had so small and ordinary 
a cause. It occurred to him that possibly every- 
thing else in this affair that seemed so mysterious 
and daunting might have an equally simple expla- 
nation, and he went on: “May I ask why you were 
amusing yourself by calling my name like that?” 

“For a reason you may discover for yourself,” 
answered the stranger. 

Keith made no reply to this, for he supposed the 
reason to be that the stranger had wished to play 
upon his nerves — and it annoyed him to know that 
the trick had not been entirely without success. 


156 The S olitary House 


“Well, here I am,” he said. “What do you 
want?” 

“I want ” began the other, and then paused, 

and suddenly and with a fierce and passionate 
emphasis cried out: “I want to know who you are 
and what you are after and why you are always 
hanging about here? I want to know what busi- 
ness all this is of yours? I want to know what you 
are meddling for? Why don’t you keep out of 
what doesn’t concern you?” 

“Ah,” said Keith, thinking that on the whole as 
good an answer as he could make. 

“You are running yourself into a good deal of 
danger, I may tell you,” the stranger said angrily 
and loudly. 

“Perhaps you are doing the same,” Keith an- 
swered, and judged by the silence that ensued that 
his retort had been effective. 

“At any rate,” the stranger said after a long 
pause, “I know what I am doing and I know what 
I want and I know what Dick Wentworth is doing 
and what he wants. What I want to know is, where 
you come in?” 

“Ah,” said Keith, still of the opinion that that 
was the best of all the answers he could make. 

“Oh, you needn’t say anything if you don’t want 
to,” said the stranger sullenly. “You were keep- 
ing watch, I suppose, weren’t you?” 


Captured 


157 


Keith yawned audibly, but made no other reply. 

“You mean you are on his side, do you?” the 
stranger said in a tone more restrained but also with 
even more of deadly and fierce anger in it. “Well, 
perhaps you will be sorry for that before you have 
finished. Look here now. I know a good deal, 
more perhaps than you realize. I know, for in- 
stance, who has been here with you for some 
days.” 

“Do you, though?” exclaimed Keith, startled by 
this sudden and unexpected reference to Esme. 

“Yes, I do. She came with some message or 
with instructions for you, I suppose, since you are 
evidently standing in with Dick. And I know you 
and she went off together today for some reason 
and I know what disguise you adopted.” 

“Oh, my disguise? yes,” said Keith, amused by 
this reference to his return to his own clothing. 

“I know a good deal more than you think, you 
see,” the stranger insisted. 

“You do, indeed,” agreed Keith, “but you don’t 
know . . .” 

“What?” 

“Everything,” answered Keith, thinking that a 
safe remark and true of most people under most 
circumstances. “And I confess,” he went on airily, 
“that there are some things I don’t quite under- 
stand myself. Now, you made me an offer once. 


158 The Solitary House 

I’ll make you one this time. You tell me your 
side of the story, tell it me fully and frankly from 
the very beginning and perhaps — I don’t say for 
certain but perhaps — we may be able to come to a 
better understanding.” 

The other did not answer for a moment or two, 
and Keith’s heart beat high with the hope that by 
this subterfuge he was about to learn the truth 
concerning these dark matters in which he found 
himself so mysteriously involved. But when the 
stranger spoke it was to utter a vigorous refusal. 

“No,” he said, “no, I don’t understand you. I 
don’t know what your game is. I think you have 
a game of your own on. I don’t know where you 
come in at all; you are a bit too mysterious for my 
liking.” 

“An I, though?” said Keith, thinking that on 
the whole it was agreeable and rather encouraging 
to know that all the mystery was not experienced 
by himself alone. 

“I made you a straight offer the other day,” 
the stranger continued. “You didn’t accept it. 
Good thing for me you didn’t, for I know now where 
Dick and his wife are, and I have made my ar- 
rangements accordingly.” 

“Yes,” said Keith, “have you?” 

“I have, and I don’t think you will be able to 
help them much now, if that is what you are trying 


Captured 


159 


to do. My telegram v/ent off tonight. Perhaps 
you can guess who it was to?” 

“Perhaps I can,” agreed Keith, though instead 
there was no subject on earth concerning which he 
felt he was less likely to guess correctly. 

“Then you must see that the game is practically 
in my hands at last,” the stranger continued, a 
hurried and fierce excitement in his tones. “I 
know exactly what will happen and exactly what to 
do . . . and I win. You realize that?” 

“I realize that that is your opinion,” answered 
Keith. 

“You realize, too, that I can’t run the risk of 
having all my plans upset by you,” the other con- 
tinued. “You have been a puzzle to me all along 
and worry. I tell you so frankly. I don’t know 
where you come in. I don’t know what your object 
is. You seem to be trying to help Dick, and yet I 
can’t make out that you and he have ever been in 
communication. Anyhow, I’m taking no risks.” 

“No?” said Keith. 

“No, and for the last time I ask you to tell me 
frankly what you are in this for and who you are 
and what you want. I don’t want any trouble that 
can be avoided; if you are frank with me we might 
very easily come to some arrangement. This is a 
big business, and I’m willing to be reasonable. It 
will be wise for you to be open with me.” 


160 The Solitary House 

“So I will,” said Keith. “I suppose it is com- 
mon ground that you are interested in Dick Went- 
worth?” 

“Oh, very,” flashed the other with such an inten- 
sity of hate and menace in his voice as made Keith 
feel that Dick Wentworth, whoever he might he, pre- 
sumably the solitary drinker he had seen that night, 
went in no small or ordinary peril. “Yes, very 
interested.” 

“And you know,” Keith continued, speaking at a 
venture, “that Dick Wentworth and his wife are at 
this moment in the house over there?” 

“Well?” 

“Well, my idea,” continued Keith, “is that you 
and he and I should all have a good talk tomorrow 
and try to get to the bottom of all this and see if 
we can’t hit on some settlement. What do you 
say?” 

“I suppose that is meant to be funny,” snarled 
the stranger, “and I can tell you I’m not fond of 
jokes.” 

“I am quite serious,” answered Keith, though 
with a feeling that his suggestion had not been a 
very happy one. 

“Do you know what I’m beginning to think?” 
asked the stranger presently. 

“What?” 

“Why, that you know absolutely nothing about 


Captured 161 

the whole business, and are just trying to shove in 
to see what you can make for yourself.” 

“Oh, you think that, do you?” said Keith, more 
than a little disconcerted by a guess that ran so very 
near the truth. 

“Yes, and I tell you again that is a dangerous 
game to play, very dangerous, very dangerous in- 
deed. In fact . . .” 

He broke off to whistle suddenly and shrilly; 
and at the same instant that protuberance Keith had 
noticed on the branch above his head, and had taken 
for some natural swelling of the wood, detached 
itself and fell straight upon him, alighting heavily 
and with force upon his back and shoulders. 

Under the weight and the unexpectedness of the 
impact he went crashing to the ground, with that 
which had fallen upon him clinging to his shoul- 
ders. He tried to struggle, but a swift and fierce 
blow on the side of his head shook him into uncon- 
sciousness ; and when he began to recover his senses 
it was to find himself lying on his back, his hands 
held behind him, his arms pressed close to his side 
by cords drawn tightly round and about his body. 
He was a prisoner and utterly helpless, for he could 
hardly move a muscle of his body, and as he 
lay and blinked bewilderedly — for it had all hap- 
pened so swiftly he hardly realized his position — at 
the stars above, he heard the stranger’s voice ask: 


162 The Solitary House 


“Have you got him safe?” 

A kind of inarticulate grunt sounded in answer 
and seemed to be accepted as an affirmative. 

“Good,” the voice came again; “the fool has only 
himself to thank. I didn’t want any trouble; it 
only means more risk. But he would have it and 
he might be dangerous now. Well, you know 
what to do?” 

Again there sounded that inarticulate and bestial 
grunt that seemed to come from no human throat 
and yet was full of understanding — and of menace. 

“Good night, then,” said the stranger. “And 
good night, Mr. Keith, in case we never meet again.” 

He laughed softly, and Keith could still hear him 
laughing softly and wickedly to himself as his foot- 
steps died away into the quiet night. 

For a moment or two Keith lay still, and then he 
tried to struggle, but his bonds held him straitly 
and he could not. He opened his mouth to cry 
aloud for help, but at once an enormous hand, hairy 
and repulsive, was pressed upon his lips. He 
realized that he was left alone and helpless, and 
utterly in the power of whatever being it was that 
haunted this wood wherein the common story went 
that many people mysteriously vanished, never 
more to be seen on the face of the earth. 


CHAPTER XVI 


The Grave 

He wondered vaguely if those other disappear- 
ances of which people told had happened like this, 
and he felt the cords cutting like thin fire into his 
wrists and ankles as he lay waiting for the end that 
something seemed to tell him was purposed and 
inevitable and not likely to be long delayed. 

A thought came to him of Esme waiting in the 
village where he had left her, waiting for his return 
who would never come again. He found himself 
wondering what she would think. Would she pre- 
serve her trust in him, or would doubts and sus- 
picions grow in her mind till she came to believe 
that he had deserted her? Would she ever learn 
the truth? He thought not; he had an idea that 
whatever was going to be done would be well 
hidden. 

Even as he lay helpless in his bonds he writhed 
to think how easily he had been duped, how child- 
ishly he had walked into the trap laid for him. It 
had been easy enough to learn his name — though 
163 


164 The Solitary House 


apparently Keith had been taken for his surname, 
not for his first name — and the mere whispering it 
through the trees in the dark had been enough to 
lure him to the spot where his unknown and hideous 
enemy lurked in hiding — waiting, literally, to fall 
upon him unawares. Why, he had come as simply 
and easily as to the nursery rhyme of “Dilly, dilly, 
duck, come and be killed.” Why had no suspicion 
occurred to him? Why had he let his nerves be so 
easily played on? Why had he yielded so fool- 
ishly to a babyish awe and sense of wonder that a 
ten-year-old child ought to have been proof against? 

Madly, furiously, wildly, he writhed and strug- 
gled as he lay upon the ground, striving to free 
himself from the tightly drawn cords that held him 
so securely. But his efforts were useless, and as 
he struggled there came to his ears a faint, new 
sound that was like nothing he had ever heard be- 
fore, but that he knew somehow was a horrid and 
disgusting laughter. 

“Who are you?” he said, loudly and abruptly. 

There was no answer, but a beam of light shone 
upon him suddenly, either from an electric torch 
or from a dark lantern of which the slide had been 
drawn back suddenly. It showed him nothing, for 
it shone upon him from behind, but he understood 
that his captor was watching him, gloating over his 
helplessness, and it seemed to him a fearful thing 


The Grave 


165 


that he had to lie there in that bright beam of light 
while his enemy remained hidden in the gloom and 
darkness around. 

“Who are you?” he said again. 

There was still no answer, but he heard fresh 
sounds, sounds that for some time he could not 
identify. His captor was certainly working hard, 
and presently it dawned on Keith that he was dig- 
ging, digging very hard and fast in the soft mould 
near by. He asked himself curiously what reason 
his captor could be digging at such an hour in such 
a place? Why or what? . . . and the answer 
came into his mind very suddenly that what was 
being dug at this time and place was a grave. 

He had still been struggling, more quietly but 
very strenuously, to free himself from his bonds 
that all his efforts seemed only to draw tighter, hut 
now he ceased all at once and lay still, and he felt a 
cold sweat come upon his body from his head to his 
feet. 

For he was afraid, desperately afraid, with a 
sensuous and shrinking fear such as a little child 
may know in presence of vague but awful terrors. 

He tried to beat this terror down, and he listened 
again. There was no doubt now, it was the sound 
of digging that he heard, and he called out sharply: 

“You . . . you there.” 

No answer came, nor was there any pause in the 


166 The Solitary House 

digging that went on very vigorously and quickly. 
He lay and listened and from behind him the ray 
of light still shone upon him and picked him out 
so that he made the centre of a brilliant patch of 
light in the midst of that dark wood, and yet could 
see nothing himself save shadows around and the 
stars shining dimly overhead. 

At last the sound of the digging ceased, and 
he supposed that the work was complete. His 
thoughts were beginning to wander a little, and he 
felt somewhat dazed, and still the thought worried 
him whether the other people who were said to have 
vanished in this wood had been through the same 
experience and died in the same way. If so, he 
thought, he was sorry for them. 

There was a faint click and the light in which 
he lay vanished suddenly, so that again all was 
very dark. He became aware of a slow shuffling 
sound as though some one or something that did 
not walk with ease was coming near. He heard a 
scream, very loud and terrible and shrill, and he 
did not know who had uttered that dreadful cry 
till he felt an enormous hand, repulsive and hairy, 
press hard upon his mouth. 

“That was me, screaming like a girl,” he thought. 
“I must buck up; a fellow oughtn’t to be a coward.” 

The enormous hand that had pressed upon his 
mouth was withdrawn and began to grope and feel 


The Grave 


167 


about him as he lay, and when it touched his throat 
it lingered there, pressing softly and almost lov- 
ingly as though yearning in sensuous longing to 
press and crush and squeeze till it had driven out 
all life. To Keith it seemed that the bitterness 
of death was over indeed, but the hand withdrew 
again, and began once more to feel him up and 
down, pawing him as a butcher before slaughter 
may feel the points of a newly-purchased beast. 

“Well, you know,” Keith said argumentatively, 
“you might as well get it over and be done with 
it.” 

He was not afraid now; it was as though from 
the very awfulness of his position he derived a 
certain courage. As it is said that those sick to 
death know no fear, so he, knowing that the end 
was certain, found all his earlier terror quite gone 
away. 

It seemed to him certain that death must either 
be an entry into nothingness — and who can be so 
foolish as to fear nothingness? — or else the begin- 
ning of a new life; and why should one fear life? 

He felt the hairy hands that had been groping up 
and down upon his body settle now on the cords 
that were twined around his arms and body, and 
by them begin to drag him roughly along the 
ground. He could offer no resistance, and in this 
way he was pulled along for some distance. Who 


168 The Solitary House 


it was that used him so he could not make out in 
the least; he was aware only of a dark and crouch- 
ing form indistinctly visible in the heavy darkness 
of the night; he heard only a low, grunting breath- 
ing, very heavy and laboured. 

When he had been pulled along like this for 
some distance there was a pause, and he was al- 
lowed to lie still. But only for a moment, for first 
he was twisted round as though it were necessary 
that he should lie in one special position, and then 
he received a violent push in the side and felt him- 
self falling . . . falling . . . but not very far, 
only some two or three feet, though enough to 
bruise and shake him badly. And above still shone 
the faint stars half hidden by drifting clouds and 
all around was the smell of damp, freshly dug 
earth that pressed him closely and narrowly on 
every side. 

He realized as in a flash of overwhelming hor- 
ror that while yet quick and sentient he had been 
thrust into the grave here dug for him. 

And even as he understood he heard a low bestial 
chuckling on the firm ground above, and the first 
spadeful of flying earth came down upon him 
where he lay, and some of the mould was damp and 
cold upon his cheek and some of it rested with great 
weight upon his chest. 

From above he heard a voice call: 


The Grave 


169 


“Where are you? Where are you? Have you 
finished? Is it done?” 

Keith knew the voice for that of the man who had 
talked with him under the great oak. Apparently 
he was come back to see if the task he had dele- 
gated to his instrument was over yet. 

“Is it done? Is it done? Curse this darkness,” 
the voice repeated. “Have you done it?” And 
down into the grave where Keith lay bound and 
helpless a light flashed for an instant as an electric 
torch was switched on and off at once. “You’ve 
done it, then? You’ve finished it?” 

There came in answer a sort of inarticulate and 
grunting mumble like no human language Keith 
knew, but that appeared to convey a negative. 

“What do you mean?” the new-comer asked, 
his voice high and uneven. 6 *What are you doing 
. . . you are, aren’t you? ... do you mean he’s 
alive in there?” 

It seemed that this time the inarticulate and 
grunted response conveyed an affirmative, and this 
avowal that their victim still lived, though thrust 
into his grave, appeared too much for the speaker, 
who uttered a sort of choking cry, and in recoiling 
quickly, as from horror too great for him, caught 
his foot in the spreading roots of the oak and 
stumbled and fell. 

It was as though that low cry of instinctive horror 


170 The Solitary House 


and the sound of the stumble and fall acted some- 
how as a stimulus to Keith to urge him to fresh 
and yet more tremendous effort. 

Narrowly confined though he lay between the 
narrow walls of fresh dug earth pressing him on 
each side, bound as he was hand and foot by tight- 
drawn cords, he wrenched himself by an effort 
almost superhuman into a sitting position, and tore 
afresh at the bonds with which he was fastened 
and that his fall and the rough handling he had 
received while being dragged over the ground had 
a little loosened. 

They stretched, gave way a little farther, so 
mightily did he struggle, and with one great and 
final effort he tore free one bruised and bleeding 
hand. He had a little penknife in his waistcoat 
pocket. He got it out and opened it with his teeth, 
and swiftly, swiftly, cut through the other bands 
that still held him, and so stood upright and free 
in the grave. 

At a little distance he could just distinguish in 
the gloom a dark shadowy mass composed, he 
thought, of the man he had heard stumble and of 
the other man or beast, or whatever it was, helping 
him to his feet. Even as he looked this form 
separated from the other, and turned and began 
to shamble back towards the grave, and Keith 
leaped out of it and ran, ran wildly, blindly, madly, 


The Grave 


171 


drunk with terror and exhaustion, on and on 
through the sheltering darkness that fell around 
him like a cloak of protection, on and on without 
pause or stay, on through bush and undergrowth, 
by stream and tree, heeding nothing, aware of 
nothing save only his one wild impulse to flee. 

At first he was pursued, he thought, for he 
heard sounds behind. But they died away pres- 
ently, for he ran with the wild speed of uttermost 
fear, and besides the darkness favoured him, and 
at last he came somehow to the outskirts of the 
woods. 

He felt safer then, for it seemed to him that the 
power of the fiendish thing from which he had 
escaped was always greatest in the wood, beneath 
the trees. 

A little farther he ran, and then in a fold of the 
ground, on a low bank near a little bush, he fell 
down and lay still, scarce able to persuade him- 
self he still lived and had escaped whole from 
the horror of the wood. 


CHAPTER XVII 


The Wentworths 

Where he had fallen there he lay, not sleeping, 
but in a kind of dazed and comatose condition, 
never moving, scarcely breathing, till presently the 
sun rose, and its life-giving warmth began to draw 
him back to conscious existence. 

He lifted himself on one knee and remained, 
looking wildly at the wood that at a little distance 
showed itself quiet and lovely in all the glory of its 
summer foliage. Shuddering, he rose and began 
to walk unsteadily away from it. But as he moved 
the motion and the warmth of the sun and the fresh 
cool air of the morning helped to restore the bal- 
ance of his nerves, and he sighed once or twice and 
stretched himself and shook his shoulders in the 
manner of one relieving himself from a heavy 
burden. 

The brightness began to come back to his eyes, 
the steadiness to his walk; through his cramped and 
stiffened limbs the blood began again to circulate. 
He stood still and looked slowly round. The wood 
172 


The Wentworths 


173 


was some distance behind, and he found now that 
he could regard it steadily. On his left lay the 
house, and presently he turned and walked to- 
wards it. 

His first impulse had been to flee away from 
that place for ever, but now a very different pur- 
pose was rising in his mind, and though now and 
again, without apparent cause, a strong convulsive 
shuddering shook him from head to foot, purpose 
and courage were returning to him. In his mind 
a resolution was slowly forming that he would 
never leave this spot till he had discovered and 
dealt with whatever murderous abortion of nature 
or humanity lurked in the shelter of those trees. 

“It must be a man of some sort or kind,” he 
mused, for indeed, though he did not phrase it so 
to himself, he felt that the love of cruelty for 
cruelty’s sake .that had been shown to him was 
purely human. He remembered, too, that it had 
had hands — he trembled afresh as he thought of 
them, monstrous and hairy, groping upon him — 
and that it had seemed able to make some sort of 
intelligible communication by means of its un- 
couth grunting. 

He felt certain, therefore, the creature was 
human, although human, he thought, in some very 
strange and beastly manner, and now, too, those 
other stranger, wilder thoughts that had seemed 


174 T h e Solitary House 


natural enough in the night and the darkness did 
not survive in the full light of day and the clear 
warmth of the sun. Man then, of some kind, he 
decided his enemy must be, and as man, therefore, 
he could be traced and found and brought to jus- 
tice. 

It was still very early, and there was no sign of 
life about the house. Keith thought to himself 
that very probably it would be late before either 
of the inmates appeared, for he did not suppose 
that the man would be able to shake off very soon 
the effects of the whisky he had taken, and the 
woman had had her lamp burning in her room 
until the small hours of the morning. Though he 
was feeling much better and stronger, Keith was 
still both weary and hungry. He helped himself 
to some of the fruit growing in the garden, and 
then made up a bed with some old sacks in the tool 
house. 

He did not sleep much, and if he did drop off 
into momentary slumber he wakened again almost 
immediately with a start of terror and with cold 
sweat upon his brow and hands. But at any rate it 
was a rest to lie there in the cool, dim shed, and 
presently, when the morning was well advanced, he 
heard from without sounds as of some one moving 
to and fro. Peeping from the tool house door he 
saw that the tall and lovely woman he had watched 


The Wentworths 


175 


the night before had opened the kitchen door and 
was beginning to occupy herself with household 
tasks. She looked ill, he thought. Her face was 
pale, and her eyes red and somewhat bloodshot, as 
though during the night she had slept little and 
wept much, nor was there any briskness or vitality 
in her movements. 

He watched her for a little, and she went back 
into the house and closed the door. He waited a 
few minutes, hesitating whether to begin by telling 
frankly his recent experiences or whether to ap- 
pear at first simply as a stray tramp, seeking work, 
and in that character wait and watch developments. 
This last course seemed to him the most prudent, 
and after waiting a few moments he came out of the 
tool shed and knocked at the kitchen door. 

It was not opened till he had knocked twice 
again, and then when Mrs. Wentworth, as he was 
certain now she must be,' came to the door her pallor 
and evident distress were both even more marked. 
She seemed very doubtful of him, too, and ap- 
peared quite relieved when he asked for some food, 
offering to do in return any work she wished, and 
saying that he had come all the way from the coast 
and was on his way to London. 

“But I don’t know if I have any work to give 
you,” she said. 

“There’s the garden,” he urged. “I had to 


176 The Solitary House 


sleep out last night. I don’t think I can go any 
farther unless I can get something to eat.” 

She still hesitated a little, but plainly her alarm 
was lessening and she was beginning to pity him. 
Indeed, his condition was deplorable enough, and 
she said suddenly: 

“You are all over mud behind.” 

“Yes . . . yes,” he muttered, and felt himself 
shiver as he realized that that was the fresh earth 
from the new dug grave into which he had been 
thrown, and wherefrom he had so barely escaped. 

“What is it? Are you ill?” she asked, for her 
first impression was that he was about to faint. 
“You had better come in and rest. Sit down, and 
I will get you something to eat.” 

He did as she told him, for indeed he felt very 
faint and ill, and she poured out a cup of tea and 
cut some bread. 

“I have very little in the house,” she said apolo- 
getically; “there is no butter at all; and I haven’t 
cooked anything yet.” 

But the tea was very welcome and refreshing. 
She had made it strong, and it was hot and sweet, 
and he ate a little bread, too, and then she poured 
out some more tea for him. He felt very much 
better for his meal, and she allowed him when he 
had finished to busy himself with various odd jobs. 
He was occupied cleaning the knives when he 


The Wentworths 


177 


heard a voice calling from within, and Mrs. Went- 
worth said hurriedly: 

“That’s my husband; he is not very well. Yes, 
Dick, yes.” 

She hurried away, and Keith could hear them 
talking in the dining-room, or rather he heard the 
man grumbling and complaining in the vile, un- 
reasonable temper that is the result of too much 
whisky, and Mrs. Wentworth answering in soothing, 
gentle tones. Presently he heard the man — Dick 
Wentworth, as Keith was now assured — say some- 
thing about tea, and then come down the passage 
and into the kitchen. 

Keith was at the door busy with his knives, and 
Dick gave him a sulky, ill-tempered look. Ob- 
viously Dick was in the temper to quarrel with 
anybody about anything, but he did not seem sur- 
prised at seeing him, so presumably Mrs. Went- 
worth had warned him of Keith’s presence. There 
was a chair drawn up to the table, and Dick sat 
down on it and leaned his head on his hands. 

“My head’s fit to split,” he said. 

Mrs. Wentworth poured him out a cup of tea and 
he drank some grumblingly. 

“Wishywashy stuff,” he complained. “I want 
something a bit stronger.” 

“Oh, Dick, dear,” Mrs. Wentworth said piti- 
fully. 


178 The Solitary House 

“Yes, Reenie . . . dear,” he mimicked her 
roughly, “what’s the matter with you? Hi, you 
fellow there.” 

“Sir,” answered Keith, turning. 

“There’s a pub down the road, three miles or so. 
Get me a couple of bottles of whisky, there, will 
you, the best they have.” 

“Oh, Dick, Dick, please . . Reenie im- 
plored and began to cry softly to herself. 

“Shut it, old girl,” said Dick, though less un- 
kindly than before; “there’s nothing else to do. 
I’m in the soup ; not you, you know.” 

“Dick,” she implored, coming nearer to him, 
“Dick, if you will only pull yourself to- 
gether . . . ?” 

“What’s the good?” he asked. “I’m done; it’s 
all up with me. You’ll be able to manage some- 
how, but I’m done for; that old beast has got me 
all right; I might have known he would.” He took 
some silver from his pocket and handed it to Keith. 
“Get off,” he said, “and be back as sharp as you 
can.” 

Keith shook his head. 

“Better take the lady’s advice,” he said. “When 
things are bad, getting drunk doesn’t make them 
any better.” 

They both stared at him in blank surprise for a 


The Wentworths 


179 


moment, and then Dick jumped to his feet in great 
wrath. 

“Confound your impudence,” he cried. “Take 
yourself off ; clear out.” 

He advanced threateningly on Keith, and then 
suddenly sat down again. 

“I say, I do feel bad,” he muttered. 

“Have some hot tea,” Reenie said, emptying his 
cup and filling it again with fresh tea. She said to 
Keith: “We have been away, and when we got 
back last night we found some one had been here 
and robbed us.” 

“It isn’t only that,” muttered Dick moodily, 
“it’s worse than that.” 

“I wanted to tell you,” Reenie said to him, ob- 
viously trying to keep his thoughts away from the 
whisky, “there has been a woman here. I am 
sure of it.” 

“Very likely,” answered Dick. “Why not? 
The old brute would employ any one to do his 
dirty work, man, woman, or child. What I do 
want to know though, is, who gave us away? If 
Bert wasn’t in South Africa, I should think he was 
at the bottom of it.” 

“It’s no good worrying about that,” said Reenie 
slowly. “I dare say most likely it’s some one he 
sent who has been here. If you will eat some 


180 The Solitary House 

breakfast we could talk it over and decide what to 
do.” 

“I don’t want anything to eat,” grumbled Dick. 
‘‘And get rid of that fellow,” he added, glaring at 
Keith; “give him a shilling and pack him off. 
Perhaps he is one of them.” 

From where Keith stood he could see part of the 
wood and the spot where began that path by which 
on the night of his first arrival he had approached 
the house. At this moment he saw some one mov- 
ing there, the figure of a man apparently, coming 
quickly down the path. Almost at once he stepped 
out from the shelter of the trees into the open and 
moved on down the path towards the house, and 
Keith said: 

“There is some one coming, an oldish man with 
a white beard.” 

Reenie gave a little cry. Dick jumped to his 
feet and stood with his mouth open, his face very 
pale, trembling violently. Both were evidently 
greatly disturbed and frightened, and down the 
path to the house the new-comer swiftly advanced. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


The Burnt Will 

The old man who had appeared so unexpectedly 
from out of the wood advanced very quickly and 
with long and firm strides, as one who had a defi- 
nite errand to perform and wished to lose no time. 
Neither Dick Wentworth nor his wife spoke as they 
watched him approach, but it seemed they knew 
him, and their air and manner began to take on 
something of despair, as though the worst, long 
expected, was now happening. They had appar- 
ently entirely forgotten the presence of Keith at 
whom they did not even glance, and he for his 
part experienced a growing excitement, for he 
thought that he was almost certainly about to wit- 
ness the unveiling of some part at least of this 
baffling mystery. 

That the old man appearing so abruptly from 
out of the wood was neither of his assailants of the 
previous night he was, of course, quite certain, but 
he remembered that one of them had spoken of 
sending off a telegram and had suggested that Keith 
181 


182 The Solitary House 


would be able to guess to whom it had gone. And 
it was the recipient of that message that Keith 
supposed this old man to be. 

He glanced at Dick Wentworth and his wife, and 
thought that neither of them showed to the best 
advantage nor was likely to make a very favourable 
impression on the new-comer. Dick, unwashed, 
unshaven, dishevelled from his night upon the floor, 
his heavy features and bloodshot eyes showing 
plain traces of his recent debauch, was standing 
leaning against the doorpost, his hands in his pock- 
ets, his eyes on the ground, his whole expression 
that of a sullen culprit awaiting condemnation. 
Mrs. Wentworth was at least tidy in appearance, 
but her face was paler than ever; she was greatly 
agitated and looked more than half inclined to run 
away. She had as it were shrunk in upon herself, 
and all her prettiness seemed to have left her as 
though shrivelled and scorched away by her fear. 
Keith felt very sure that nothing would be less 
likely than her attitude of cringing terror to placate 
the stem-looking old man who was now only a few 
yards away. 

It did not, however, occur to Keith that he him- 
self, unwashed and unshaven like Dick, his ragged 
clothing covered with earth stains, his whole ap- 
pearance at first glance that of a specially dis- 
reputable tramp, was displaying a presence by no 


The Burnt Will 


183 


means likely to lessen this unfavourable impression 
he feared the other two would make. 

He was standing a little apart, and the old man 
saw him first and then the other two, and came 
straight up to them. He was well and carefully 
dressed in a light grey suit with a soft homburg 
hat, and wore gold eye-glasses and a heavy gold 
chain across his white waistcoat. His whole ap- 
pearance was that of a man of wealth and standing, 
and his keen bright eyes under shaggy grey eye- 
brows, his prominent hooked nose and his heavy 
square jaw seemed to proclaim him a man of great 
resolution and decision of character, and one whose 
naturally domineering temper and habit of self- 
will had not been softened by a long and success- 
ful career. 

To the sulky downcast Dick standing with his 
hands in his pockets leaning against the doorpost 
he presented a striking contrast, and yet there was 
between them a faint resemblance like that of two 
statues made from one model, but one to represent 
strength and the other weakness. 

At first the old man did not speak. He gave 
Keith one quick glance that passed him over as of 
total unimportance; he gave Reenie another glance 
that seemed to say she mattered hardly more; and 
on Dick he concentrated a perfect glare of wrath- 
ful contempt. 


184 The Solitary House 


“So you are here,” he said slowly at last. “I 
wanted to make sure with my own eyes.” 

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Dick muttered. 

“I suppose you think another lie or two doesn’t 
matter,” said the old man. “Have you anything 
to say for yourself? If so, I shall be interested to 
hear it.” 

“A man has got a right to marry whom he likes,” 
mumbled Dick. 

“You chose to disobey me, to defy me,” retorted 
the old man, “though you owed me everything, 
everything. You ” 

“It was my fault,” interrupted Reenie in tones 
so trembling as to be hardly distinguishable, and 
stopped suddenly, as it were made dumb by the 
terrible glance the old man shot at her. 

“I won’t dispute it,” he said to her sardonically. 
“I have no doubt you thought you were going to 
marry a rich man’s heir — and that the doddering 
old fool would soon be coaxed over. Well, you 
made a mistake. I’m not easily coaxed over, and 
you married a beggar — look at him” — he flung out 
a scornful hand at the unhappy Dick — “a drunken 
good-for-nothing,” he sneered. “And worse. Let 
me tell you something, sir. I have had your ac- 
counts audited.” 

Dick winced visibly and tried to moisten his dry 
lips. 


The Burnt Will 


185 


“There’s a discrepancy of a good many thousand 
pounds,” continued the old man. “You are not 
only ungrateful and disobedient, you have not only 
chosen to defy my express wishes, you have be- 
trayed your trust and you are an embezzler and a 
thief.” 

“I had got to have money somehow,” Dick an- 
swered with a little more spirit than- he had shown 
so far. “You kept me so infernally short, and I 
had got to have some somehow when I married. 
Besides, it was mine really; I was only borrowing 
my own. You always said it would all be mine.” 

“It would have been yours some day if you had 
chosen to respect my wishes,” retorted the old man, 
“but now you shall never have a penny of it. Your 
borrowing, as you call it, was mere theft, and I shall 
see you answer for it.” 

“Going to prosecute?” asked Dick, lifting a 
pale, defiant face. “A nice scandal that will 
make. Mr. Wentworth of Wentworth’s, one of the 
leading houses in the iron and lead trade, prose- 
cutes his nephew who is sentenced to a long term of 
imprisonment, eh?” 

“Most likely,” answered the old man implacably. 
“I shall be surprised if you escape penal servi- 
tude.” 

“Look here, uncle,” began Dick, his first man- 
ner of sullen defiance beginning to weaken a lit- 


186 The Solitary House 

tie, “you needn’t rub it in so thick. I know I 
oughtn’t to have done it, but I thought ... I 
thought I had a right to some. Besides, you’ve 
got it all back.” 

“What do you mean? I have got none back,” 
answered the old man. 

“It must be your people you sent here who took 
it,” Dick insisted. “I thought if we had to bolt 
we had better , have something to go on. Now 
you’ve got it back, and I think you might be satis- 
fied with that.” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” said old Mr. 
Wentworth angrily. “I think you are still drunk, 
'and if you imagine I will spare a thief because he 
happens to be my nephew you are mistaken. I 
came here to make sure with my own eyes. I am 
satisfied now. Do you see this?” 

As he spoke he took from his pocket a large 
formal-looking document. 

“My will,” he said; “it makes you my sole 
heir.” 

He took out a matchbox and struck a match and 
put a light to the document. It burnt slowly and 
steadily in the clear still morning air. They all 
watched the little flames consume it, and the old 
man stood holding it out at arm’s length till it was 
nearly all burnt away, when he dropped it and put 
his heel on what was left. 


The Burnt Will 


187 


“And I warn you,” he said, “that as soon as I 
return home I shall apply for a warrant for your 
arrest. I am not to be robbed with impunity, as 
you will find to your cost.” 

“Well, you’ve got it all back, haven’t you?” 
Dick insisted, sullenly. 

The old man gave him a wrathful stare and was 
in the act of turning away when Reenie sprang 
forward. 

“Oh, please, please forgive us,” she cried. “If 
Dick has done anything wrong I know he didn’t 
mean to, and it’s only because he was so worried 
for me, and if you like I will go away and never 
see him again, never, never, if only you won’t 
be hard on him, and we are both very sorry 
indeed.” 

“It’s no use saying that now,” the old man an- 
swered coldly. “Most people are sorry for what 
they do when they find it doesn’t bring them all 
the advantage they expected. I have been treated 
disgracefully, widi the blackest ingratitude,” he 
cried with sudden heat, and turning away came 
face to face to Keith who was standing near. 
“Who are you? What the mischief do you want?” 
Mr. Wentworth demanded angrily. 

“I only wanted to ask,” said Keith, “if you are 
here as a result of a telegram you received yester- 
day?” 


188 The Solitary Ho use 


“Confound your insolence,” roared the old man. 
“What’s that to do with you? What do you mean? 
Who are you?” 

“Keith Norton,” answered Keith promptly. 

“One of my nephew’s accomplices, one of the 
scoundrels he collected round him, I suppose,” 
said Mr. Wentworth. “Well, you had better take 
care or you may find the police after you as well.” 

“And that telegram, am I right in thinking you 
received one?” Keith insisted. 

“Mind your own business,” cried the old man, 
still more angrily. 

“But I consider it is my business,” answered 
Keith, “for I believe that whoever sent you that 
telegram tried to murder me last night, and so you 
see I am interested.” 

Old Mr. Wentworth stared at Keith as if he quite 
failed to understand this and looked more angry 
still. His face was quite pale with rage, his lips 
were blue, his beard and moustache seemed to 
bristle, and he appeared to find it difficult to 
breathe, as though his rage were suffocating him. 
With a furious gesture he swung round upon his 
heel and marched away, and the three by the house 
door watched him in silence as he went. 

“Oh, Dick, what will he do?” Reenie exclaimed 
at last, turning to her husband. “Oh, Dick . . .” 

“It’s all up,” Dick muttered. “I’m done. I 


The Burnt Will 


189 


always thought he might prosecute, and I believe 
he means to.” 

“Run after him,” Reenie urged. “Dick, he can 
never be so cruel, so hard and cruel. Run after 
him, quick. Tell him you are very sorry, tell him 
we will part and never see each other again, tell 
him we will do anything he likes. Quick, Dick, 
run, run.” 

She almost pushed him in her eagerness, and 
Dick, after a momentary hesitation, began to fol- 
low old Mr. Wentworth, who by this time was half 
way to the wood. He walked on quickly, without 
once looking back, and before Dick could overtake 
him he vanished beneath the trees. 

Keith turned to Reenie. 

“He seemed in a bit of a temper,” he remarked. 

“He wanted Dick to marry some one else,” she 
muttered, “and he married me instead. He’ll 
never forgive us.” 

“He certainly didn’t seem in a very forgiving 
mood,” agreed Dick. “Far from it.” 

She went back into the house as though hardly 
hearing what he said and sat down in the kitchen, 
and then came out again with a shilling in her 
hand and offered it to Keith. 

“I think you had better go now,” she said. 

“I think I’ll stay here,” he answered. “I’m 
interested, more interested than you know.” 


190 The Solitary House 

She was not listening, and she offered him the 
shilling again, and then Dick appeared from the 
wood, coming back to the house. 

He was alone and walked slowly and heavily, 
and Reenie, forgetting all about Keith, went anx- 
iously to meet him. 

“Wouldn’t he listen?” she said. 

“I couldn’t find him,” Dick answered. “I don’t 
know what had become of him; I couldn’t see him 
anywhere. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing any 
one could say would make any difference to him 
when he’s in such a temper. I don’t know where 
he could have got to, though; I couldn’t see him 
anywhere.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


The Hidden Jewellery 

“It was the trees,” Reenie said quickly; “you 
ought to have gone on; you would have seen him 
again at once.” She paused and added with a 
little movement of her hands: “It would have 
been no good.” 

“No,” agreed Dick moodily. “No.” 

Keith had turned and was staring at the wood 
that lay so green and shady in the hot sunshine. 
The expression used by Dick that old Mr. Went- 
worth had “vanished” startled him for the mo- 
ment, but he put away the momentary fear he ex- 
perienced with the reflection that the old man had 
already come through the wood once with safety, 
and that there was no reason to suppose any danger 
threatened his life. Besides, it was broad daylight 
now, and then Keith was sure that the attack made 
on him the night before had been personal and 
aimed only at himself. Still, it was odd, a little 
disturbing, that Dick should have chanced to use 
such an expression. 

lei 


192 The Solitary House 

. — ■■I — I ■ ■ ■■ .1 M 

Dick, sullen and downcast, was in the act of 
entering the house when he seemed to remember 
Keith’s presence. 

“Here, you,” he shouted, “clear out; take your- 
self off; what are you hanging about here for? 
Clear out and look sharp about it.” 

Keith turned again and came slowly towards 
him. 

“Look here,” he said, “I wish you would tell me 
what all this means. I’m not asking out of curios- 
ity,” he added quickly as Dick seemed about to 
burst into a fresh torrent of wrath. “I have a seri- 
ous reason for asking, and I think perhaps I may 
be able to help you.” 

“You!” repeated Dick, surprised and doubtful. 
“You . . . how?” 

“I don’t know,” answered Keith frankly. 
“There is a lot I don’t understand. Bui I am not 
here quite by accident; I can tell you that. And 
I’ve seen enough to know some very queer work 
is going on. There have been two attempts made 
to murder me, for example.” 

They both looked at him, but evidently were by 
no means satisfied, and Keith said again: 

“You might as well trust me. Let me ask you 
a question. Do you know anything about — jewel- 
lery?” 

“Jewellery?” repeated Dick, starting violently. 


The Hidden Jewellery 193 


“Why do you say that? What do you know about 
it? Are you one of his lot?” 

“Whose lot?” asked Keith. “We shan’t get 
much farther forward by asking questions and 
never answering them. I will tell you how I came 
to be here. I was tramping to London, and I found 
this place empty, with doors and windows open, and 
apparently left in a most extraordinary hurry. I 
was about done up and I helped myself to some of 
the food I found, and then I thought I would have 
a night’s rest here, as there seemed no one to ob- 
ject. During the night an attempt was made to 
murder me, to strangle me. Whoever it was got 
away somehow. I don’t know how. If you have 
been nearly murdered in a house you get to feel 
quite at home in it, naturally, so I stayed on, and 
I searched it thoroughly to see if I could find out 
why I had been attacked, and who by. In the 
boxroom ” 

“My jewellery!” Dick shouted. “You scoun- 
drel; you stole them; you’ve got them; give me 
them back or . . . or . . .” 

“Don’t be a fool,” said Keith angrily. “Listen 
to me, will you?” 

“No, I won’t,” Dick cried. “Where are they? 
Give them me or . . .” 

“You silly ass,” growled Keith. “Keep your 
distance or I’ll knock your head off,” he added 


194 The Solitary House 


as Dick made a threatening movement for- 
ward. 

“Dick, Dick, don’t,” Reenie cried, interrupting. 
“Dick, you mustn’t; listen to him; hear what he has 
to say.” 

“But he has the jewels,” Dick cried excitedly; 
“he has stolen the jewels.” 

“He wouldn’t have told us that if he had meant 
to keep them,” Reenie said. 

“Oh, well,” muttered Dick, eyeing Keith doubt- 
fully and resentfully, “where are they?” 

“I will show you presently,” answered Keith, 
“if you will try not to make such a priceless fool 
of yourself; you are only making things into a 
bigger mess than they are, you know.” 

“I don’t see what business it is of yours,” Dick 
said. 

“I’ve told you two attempts have been made to 
murder me. If that doesn’t give me some right to 
consider it’s some business of mine, I don’t know 
what would. What I want to understand is — well, 
who you are and why you are here, and what it all 
means?” 

“I should think you’d know; , the old man was 
pretty candid, wasn’t he?” grumbled Dick. 

“There is very little to tell really,” interposed 
Reenie, “and there is no reason why you shouldn’t 
know it all, if you want to. That gentleman who 


The Hidden Jewel ler y 195 


was here just now is old Mr. Wentworth, Mr. Peter 
Wentworth. He is very rich, and some years ago 
he adopted my husband as his heir. But he wanted 
him very much to marry a girl belonging to a very 
rich and grand family, and Dick wouldn’t, because 
he didn’t like her, and he married me instead, and 
of course that would have made Mr. Wentworth 
more furious than ever if he had found out, because 
I’m not important at all and all my family is very 
poor. At first I lived in lodgings in London, and 
Dick came to see me when he could, but people were 
so inquisitive, and one or two of the landladies were 
awfully horrid, and every one would ask questions, 
and so at last Dick heard of this house and we 
came here because we thought it would be quiet and 
out of the way and no one to bother us. But we 
hadn’t been here very long when some one sent a 
telegram to old Mr. Wentworth to say Dick was 
married and where we lived, and if he came here 
he would find us together. By the merest chance 
in the world Dick saw the telegram, and he rushed 
off here as fast as he could and in less than two 
minutes after he arrived we were away, leaving 
everything just as it was because nothing mattered 
much if only we got off before Mr. Wentworth 
came.” \ 

“We needn’t have been in such a hurry, either, 
as it happened,” added Dick; “the old boy’s motor 


196 The Solitary House 


ran into a lamp-post, and he was badly shaken up 
and never got here at all that day. So I needn’t 
have left those jewels the way I did. But I 
thought they were as safe there as anywhere, or as 
they would be carting them about to lodging-houses 
and hotels. As soon as I thought the coast was 
clear I came back to get them and they were gone. 
Some one had evidently been living in the house 
some time, and I took it the old man had had some 
one here, nosing round, and that he had found 
the jewellery and cleared it off.” 

“So then you got drunk,” observed Keith; “jolly 
silly idea. But what are these jewels? Where 
do they come from and how did you get them?” 

“I bought them,” answered Dick shortly. “You 
heard what he said about my accounts being short, 
and how he was going to the police and all the rest 
of it — he will, too. Well, you see, the accounts 
got wrong by degrees somehow. I knew there was 
bound to be a bust up. He was more and more set 
on my marrying Agnes Oateley all the time, and the 
more he was set on it the more I wasn’t going to do 
it. I would have blown my brains out first. So I 
didn’t care much if the accounts did go wrong. 
But when I found I was £50 short and couldn’t say 
how — I hadn’t had it, I swear that; it was some mis- 
take somewhere; I hadn’t touched a penny then — 
I knew he had the whiphand of me. That’s what 


The Hidden J'ew ell er y 197 


he likes. He wants all the rest of the world to be 
clockwork and him to have the key. I knew if he 
found out it would be gaol or marry Aggie Oateley. 
So I thought I might as well be hanged for a sheep 
as a lamb, and all I took — he always said it would 
all be mine some day — I spent on jewellery. It 
was a man I knew in the jewellery trade put me up 
to that; he said it was the safest and easiest way 
there was. Stocks and shares and bonds and bank 
notes can always be traced, and gold is too heavy, 
but you can always deal in jewellery, and wedding 
rings are as good as cash. And if you say you are 
a traveller in jewellery you can take your stuff 
anywhere and no questions asked. If you’ve got it, 
where is it?” 

“Oh, I’ve got it all right,” said Keith. “I am 
beginning to see things more clearly now. But 
who is it tried to murder me?” 

Dick shook his head. 

“I know nothing about that,” he said. 

“Who sent Mr. Wentworth the telegram you 
talk about?” 

“I don’t know that either,” answered Dick. “I 
wish I did. I should have said it was Bert, only he 
is in South Africa, and I don’t see what good it 
would do him. But it would be like him all the 
same.” 

“Who is Bert?” 


198 T he Solitary House 


“Mr. Wentworth’s stepson. His mother is dead, 
but under the marriage settlements he is heir unless 
expressly excluded by will. It was his marriage 
gave the old man his capital for his first big start, 
and she thought her son ought to be the chief heir, 
but agreed to her husband having the power to 
exclude him for any good reason. He provided 
the good reason all right, and the old man gave him 
the choice of leaving the country or being prose- 
cuted. That was when he adopted me. I was to 
be heir instead of Bert. Of course Bert hated me 
like poison. I thought then it was jolly good luck 
for me, but I don’t now.” 

“Is this Bert a tall man with long arms and legs 
and a face that looks all skin and bone, very little 
small bright eyes, and a very strong growth of 
beard?” 

“You’ve seen him; he’s here?” Reenie cried ex- 
citedly. 

“I think so,” Keith answered. “I think I saw 
him last night. I think it was he who tried to 
murder me. Mr. Wentworth has just burnt his 
will. Then if he died suddenly, his stepson, Bert, 
would be his heir?” 

“No fear of that,” answered Dick; “he won’t 
die yet, not him, not till he has made a fresh will. 
He always had an idea of founding a Wentworth 
institute or library or something of that kind. And 


The Hidden Jewellery 199 

that’s what he’ll do. He’ll take care neither Bert 
nor I ever touch a penny.” 

But Keith was staring at the wood, the silent, 
shady wood, and he remembered how Dick had said 
that in it the old man had vanished and could not 
be found. 

“About my jewellery?” Dick said abruptly. 

“I’ll show you were it is,” said Keith; “it’s close 
by, though I’ll guarantee neither you nor any one 
else would ever find it. But we had better be care- 
ful and think what we are going to do. I have an 
idea there may be trouble ahead.” 

“Let’s have my jewellery first,” said Dick im- 
patiently. 

“All right,” said Keith. “Come this way. In 
that wood” — he nodded towards it — “there’s . . . 
something.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Dick. 

“I don’t know, I wish I did,” said Keith, still 
staring abstractedly at the wood. “You say this 
cousin of yours, Bert Wentworth, has been in South 
Africa?” 

“Yes,” said Dick impatiently, “he went there. 
The jewellery ” 

“It is just here,” Keith said. “I suppose there 
are precious queer peoples in South Africa — Bush- 
men and Hottentots and what not?” 

“What do you keep talking about South Africa 


200 The Solitary House 


for?” demanded Dick, looking very doubtful and 
angry. “Are you bluffing me about that jewel- 
lery?” 

“No, I’ll show it you,” answered Keith. “South 
Africa — oh, you and your jewellery be hanged to- 
gether; if you had been through what I did last 
night you wouldn’t be in such a stew about it. But 
it’s just here.” 


CHAPTER XX 


A New Mystery 

“Where? where?” Dick asked impatiently. 
Keith had turned his glance again to the wood, and 
it was in his mind that instead of troubling about 
the jewellery, which after all was safe enough where 
it was and where it had been so long, they would 
do better to assure themselves concerning old Mr. 
Wentworth’s safety. 

“I say,” he began, “don’t you think we had bet- 
ter first of all ” 

But Dick exploded at that into the fiercest rage. 

“I believe you are trying to make a fool of me,” 
he shouted. “Where are my jewels? You’ve had 
them ; tell me where they are, quick, or . . 

It was plain he was working himself into a state 
of the greatest anger and excitement, and that un- 
less he was satisfied quickly his rage and fury, 
would impel him to some violent action. Keith 
said impatiently: 

“Hang you and your beastly jewels, too. 
They’re here.” 


201 


202 The Solitary House 


As he spoke he moved a yard or two and stamped 
on the flags of the yard outside the kitchen door 
where they were standing; at a spot under which 
was the big subterranean tank for storing rain- 
water, containing when full a good many hundred 
gallons. Dick did not at first understand. 

“What do you mean?” he growled suspiciously. 
“Don’t try to fool me or you’ll be sorry for it. 
The rainwater tank’s there.” 

“That’s where your precious jewellery is,” re- 
peated Keith. 

Dick stepped forward and pulled up the heavy 
stone slab that covered the entrance to the tank 
and stared down doubtfully. 

“Where?” he said, “whereabouts? It’s full of 
water.” 

In point of fact it was not much more than half 
full, for of late there had not been a great deal of 
rain. But looking down one saw a dark surface of 
water that seemed to suggest great depth and ex- 
panse. 

“Where?” Dick repeated and flashed at Keith 
a look of new suspicion. “I don’t see . . .” he 
said. 

“It’s under the water,” Keith explained. “I 
tied the stuff up in three bundles, in three pillow- 
cases I got out of one of the drawers, and I chucked 
them down there.” 


A New Mystery 


203 


“Down there? What for?” cried Dick. 

“To be safe. I thought that was about the safest 
hiding place I could find,” answered Keith. “No 
one would be likely to think of it, and no one could 
get the stuff up again without a good deal of hard 
work even if they knew it was there.” 

“How are we to get it?” asked Dick. 

“I should think a rake would do if you get one 
from the tool house,” answered Keith. “If not, 
we must empty all the water out. Wait a moment 
first of all. I’m not easy about your uncle. There 
is something precious queer about that wood, and 
you said when you went after him just now you 
couldn’t see him; you said he had vanished. It’s 
a queer place, that wood. Now I’ve told you where 
your jewellery is, let us make sure first of all he is 
all right. The jewellery has been down there so 
long that another hour or two won’t hurt it.” 

“I want to see it myself. I want to make sure 
you’re not trying to fool me,” retorted Dick. 
“Uncle’s all right, and I don’t care if he isn’t; he 
can look after himself anyhow. It was only be- 
cause of the trees I couldn’t see him, and I tell you 
plainly I don’t trust you. I want to see those jewels 
for myself ; you may be up to something for all I 
know. Reenie, get me a rake out of the tool 
house.” 

Dick was plainly in a very excited and 


204 The Solitary House 


wrought-up state, and Keith realized that opposi- 
tion would probably result in a personal encounter, 
for which he was by no means anxious. It would 
mean waste of time and energy, and besides he was 
exceedingly anxious to work with Dick if he could 
and not against him. But in Dick’s present mood 
any further attempt at delay would almost certainly 
result in a violent scene, and Keith said impa- 
tiently: 

“All right, have your own way.” 

“I mean to; I’m not going to be made a fool of, 
thank you,” Dick retorted. 

Reenie came up with a rake she had found in 
the tool house, and Keith took it from her and, 
kneeling down by the gaping mouth of the tank, 
began to grope and feel in the water. But though 
he tried persistently for some time he found noth- 
ing except mud and bits of rotting twigs or leaves 
that had blown in at one time or another. 

“It’s no good,” he said at last; “we must empty 
the tank.” 

Dick said nothing. He was looking blacker and 
more doubtful all the time. He went to the little 
hand pump in the scullery by which the water was 
drawn up from the tank and worked it energetically, 
and Keith got a bucket and rope and helped to 
bail out the water. Even so it took the two of them 


A New Mystery 


205 


some time before at last the tank was empty ex- 
cept for a few inches of water and mud which 
they could not get rid of. Keith procured a lan- 
tern, too, and lowered it at the end of a rope, but 
the light was not very strong, and he could not 
make out the bundles anywhere. 

“Come and help me get a ladder,” he said to 
Dick. “I’ll go down; the bundles must have got 
covered with mud somehow.” 

Dick said not a word as he went with Keith round 
the house to where the ladder was kept, but it was 
plain that his temper and his doubts were both 
swiftly rising to fever pitch. They brought the 
ladder back and put it down the tank, which was 
about ten or twelve feet deep, and Keith descended 
it, lantern and rake in hand. The floor of the tank 
was of concrete, the mud and water covering it was 
only at most four or five inches deep, and it did not 
need a very prolonged examination to convince 
Keith of what he had already begun to suspect, 
that the three precious bundles he had thrown down 
here and thought so safe in such a clever hiding 
place had all three vanished. 

Some one had been before him. 

When he had climbed back up the ladder he 
found Dick standing at a little distance holding in 
his hand a heavy piece of wood like a club. 


206 The Solitary House 


“Well?” he said. 

“All gone,” said Keith briefly; “some one has 
got hold of it somehow.” 

“Yes, and I think I can guess who,” retorted 
Dick. “I hope you don’t think I’ve been fooled 
by all these antics of yours. Suppose you stop 
messing about like this and just tell me where my 
jewels are?” 

“Don’t be an ass,” said Keith irritably. “I’m 
awfully sorry ” 

“Yes, I’m sure you are,” sneered Dick, lifting 
his club threateningly, “and I’m going to make you 
a lot sorrier.” 

“I must have been watched,” Keith went on, 
controlling his temper by an effort. “It’s rotten 
luck, but the stuff’s gone and ” 

“You might as well give up trying to make a 
fool of me,” interrupted Dick. “I’m fed up. Will 
you tell me what you’ve done with it? Because if 
you won’t, I propose to make you.” 

“If you are going to take that line,” said Keith, 
losing his temper, “it’s no good my saying any- 
thing, and you can go and hang yourself.” 

“Dick, Dick,” interposed Reenie who was look- 
ing on very nervously, “I ” 

“Keep quiet,” Dick snarled at her. “Keep out 
of the way or you’ll be getting hurt. Go into the 
house. Do as I tell you.” 


A New Mystery 


207 


Reenie shrank back terrified, and Dick advanced 
slowly towards Keith. 

“Well, what’s it to be?” he said threateningly. 

“You infernal fool,” growled Keith, lifting his 
hands to be ready. 

Dick made a rush at him, but Keith was on the 
alert, and instead of waiting for the attack, as Dick 
expected, he sprang forward, and with very great 
rapidity flung in two swift tremendous blows, 
straight from the shoulder, left and right altern- 
ately. The first blow took Dick upon the cheek and 
staggered him, the second caught him clear be- 
tween the eyes and fairly lifted him from the 
ground to fall heavily full length backwards, supine 
on the flags of the yard. Reenie screamed shrilly 
and ran forward with her arms held out as if to 
protect him, and Keith drew back. 

“I’m awfully sorry,” he said, “but he would 
have it. He’s not hurt, nothing to speak of; he’ll 
be all right in a minute. I’ll get you some water.” 

He went into the house and brought out a basin 
full of water and looked on while Reenie bathed the 
prostrate man’s bruised face, supporting his head 
in her lap and looking very pale and frightened. 

“I’m awfully sorry,” Keith repeated. “I had 
to do it; he was quite off* his head; he would have 
smashed me up with that club of his if I hadn’t.” 

Reenie was far too anxious and alarmed to 


208 The Solitary House 



listen to him, and he put his hands in his pockets 
and turned away. He realized that the position was 
very awkward. He had confessed to a knowledge 
of the jewels, and most likely every one else would 
be as incredulous of his story and of his declara- 
tion that he was ignorant of their present where- 
abouts as Dick had shown himself to be. Every 
one would think he had hidden the jewellery for 
his own benefit. And the plans that had been be- 
ginning to form in his mind for solving the mystery, 
and that had all involved Dick’s co-operation, were 
ruined. Personally he had no doubt as to what 
had become of the lost jewels. That lurking horror 
of the wood that had twice attempted to murder 
him had no doubt secured them, but how would he 
be able to get any one to believe so when most 
likely they would not even believe in the existence 
of such a creature? He supposed ruefully that 
really the rainwater tank had been an awfully silly 
hiding place to choose, though at the time he had 
thought it such a good one and perfectly safe. 

Dick was sitting up now and feeling his head 
tenderly, and Keith strolled up to him. 

“Of course I’m awfully sorry,” he said, “but I 
had to get my whack in first. And I’m sorry about 
the jewellery, too. I can’t make you believe me, 
but I’m telling the truth about it.” 

“You can hit jolly hard and jolly quick,” re- 


209 


A New Mystery 

marked Dick reflectively, getting slowly to his feet. 

“Well, I dare say you weren’t up to your best 
form,” remarked Keith apologetically. 

“You got in thundering quick,” repeated Dick. 

He seemed quieter now and less excited, and 
altogether in a more reasonable mood. 

“If I had wanted to steal the stuff,” Keith urged, 
“I should have cleared off and never said a word 
to you; you didn’t suspect me at all. Unless I had 
liked, there was no need for me to say a word. I 
know it’s a big let in, the stuff going like this. But 
I know who’s done it.” 

“Who?” asked Dick. 

“There’s somebody, something, some one lurk- 
ing in that wood for some reason or another,” Keith 
answered. “That’s who’s got it.” 

“Hullo,” interrupted Dick, “here’s Walters — 
uncle’s chauffeur,” he added by way of explana- 
tion to Keith. “What’s he want?” 

A small slight young man wearing the leather 
jacket and gaiters of a chauffeur appeared round 
the side of the house and stood looking at them very 
curiously. 

“Well, what is it?” Dick said to him sharply, 
and Keith remembered afterwards that he had not 
at first sight much liked the man’s appearance. 

“Beg pardon, Mr. Dick, sir,” Walters answered, 
“it’s Mr. Wentworth. I’ve been waiting so long I 


210 T he Solitary H ou s e 


thought I had better come and see if there were 
any orders, as he said he would not be more than 
two or three minutes.” 

“He isn’t here,” said Dick; “he was, but he’s 
gone again; he went back through the wood.” 

“Did he, sir?” said Walters, watching Dick curi- 
ously. “Well, he’s never come out of it the other 
side, for I’ve been waiting there all the time.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


What Keith Found 

As with one accord they all three turned to look 
at this wood that lay so green and shady in the blaz- 
ing heat of the sun. In Keith’s mind the strang- 
est thoughts were stirring, and Dick shrugged his 
shoulders and said with angry impatience: 

“Well, what if he did, he can stop there if he 
likes, can’t he?” 

“Yes, only what should he be stopping there 
for?” asked Walters, and Keith saw his small and 
uneasy eyes rest twinklingly first on one of them 
and then on the other. 

“How should we know?” demanded Dick. 

“Can anything have happened to him?” asked 
Reenie from behind. 

“Don’t be silly,” snapped Dick. “Of course 
not. What could happen?” 

“Now then,” observed Walters argumentatively, 
“that’s just it — what could?” 

“When you went after him,” Keith said to Dick, 
“you could see nothing of him at all?” 

211 


212 The Solit ary House 


“No,” answered Dick, “but I didn’t worry my- 
self much. He was in such a rage it wouldn’t 
have been any good saying anything to him.” 

“You went after him into the wood, did you, 
sir?” asked Walters. “He’s never come out 
again,” he repeated thoughtfully. “It’s queer. 
Did you say he seemed in one of his tempers, Mr. 
Dick?” 

“Yes, I did,” answered Dick, “but don’t you 
ask so many questions. You’re getting a bit too 
cheeky, Walters.” 

“Very sorry, sir,” said Walters, “but you see 
while we was coming here he said one or two things 
... I thought . . .” 

“Well, you can clear out and do your thinking 
somewhere else,” said Dick angrily. “I don’t 
want you hanging about here. Clear out.” 

“Yes, sir,” said Walters; “very sorry, sir. Only 
you see, it is a bit queer like, because, if he went 
into that wood, why hasn’t he come out again?” 

“It is strange, Dick,” said Reenie from behind. 
“I think perhaps something may have happened. 
I think you ought to go and see.” 

“Rot; what could happen?” asked Dick irritably. 

But nevertheless he as well as Keith and Walters 
were all three staring intently into the green and 
shady depths of the wood, intently and a little 
strangely. 


What Keith Found 213 

“I think you ought to go and look,” Reenie re- 
peated. 

“Yes, come along,” Keith said. 

He began to walk towards the wood and Dick 
followed sulkily, muttering something under his 
breath as he did so. Walters followed close be- 
hind, his forehead puckered, his small eyes alert 
and twinkling. 

They entered the wood where the path began 
and followed this in silence right through to the 
other side of the wood without finding any trace 
of old Mr. Wentworth. On the road they had 
now reached the big motor-car in which he had 
arrived was standing just as Walters had left it, and 
there was no sign of Mr. Wentworth to be seen 
there either. 

“Where can he be?” Walters said. “I don’t 
understand it; it isn’t like him.” 

His small sharp little eyes flickered from one to 
the other in turn, and it was not difficult to see that 
suspicions were forming in his mind. Keith, too, 
was beginning to feel seriously uneasy, and Dick 
shrugged his shoulders and said: 

“It’s no business of ours ; he can look after him- 
self, can’t he?” 

“I think we had better have another look,” said 
Keith, turning back to the wood. 

The other two followed him, though Dick seemed 


214 The Solitary House 

not too willing and grumbled a little to himself 
about wasting time and about the old man being 
well able to take care of himself. They returned 
the way they had come, but searching more closely 
and carefully the ground on each side of the path, 
and then they turned back and went through the 
wood length ways, still without finding any trace of 
the missing man. When they had gone through a 
third time, still without finding any trace or sign 
of him, and had come again to the road where 
the big motor-car stood, Walters said abruptly: 

“He’s not in the wood; he’s not here; where is 
he?” 

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Dick. 
“I’m fed up, anyhow. He is probably working out 
some of his beastly clever schemes. I’m not going 
to waste any more time hunting for him.” 

“It’s beginning to look to me as though some- 
thing may have happened,” Keith said slowly. 

“Oh, that’s all rot,” declared Dick. 

“It’s not rot,” retorted Keith; “that something 
happened to me last night in this place.” 

“Oh,” said Walters, “what was that, sir?” 

“Somebody made an attack on me,” answered 
Keith. “I don’t know who.” 

“That’s rummier than ever, that is,” declared 
Walters, but not very much as though he believed 
what Keith said. “Well, as I understand it, Mr. 


What Keith Found 215 


Dick, sir, Mr. Wentworth had words with you and 
he went back through the wood to return to me 
where I was waiting for him with the car, but he 
never got to me, and when you went after him into 
the wood you couldn’t find him and now we can’t 
find any trace of him anywhere.” 

Dick did not answer. He was a little pale, and 
he knew that the chauffeur was looking at him 
with a doubtful, sideways glance, but he did not 
know what to say without appearing to admit that 
he realized how suspicious circumstances appeared. 
Walters said suddenly: 

“I think it’s a police business. I’m going 
straight off to fetch the police.” 

“All right, you can if you like,” said Dick, and 
added a surly oath. 

Walters did not answer, but went away quickly. 
They remained standing where he had left them, 
and presently they heard the sound of the engine as 
Walters started the car. Dick laughed uneasily. 

“The blazing fool,” he said; “hang his insolence, 
though.” 

“I think we had better have another look,” Keith 
said. “It strikes me that whoever tried to murder 
me last night has attacked your uncle too. Or 
else . . .” 

“That’s all rubbish,” said Dick in a very loud 
and firm voice. “Why should any one attack 


216 The Solitary House 

him?” He laughed harshly. “I believe that ass 
Walters — he always was an impudent beggar — 
thinks I’ve murdered him, as if murdering the old 
man would do me any good when he had just burnt 
his will. There might have been some sense in it 
if I had done for him before that.” 

“I suppose the will might be in duplicate,” re- 
marked Keith. “I believe people sometimes make 
their wills in duplicate, keeping one copy and leav- 
ing the other with their lawyer or a bank.” 

“I believe he did that. I believe there is a dup- 
licate,” said Dick. “You can do what you like. 
I’m going back to the house. If Walters brings 
the police they can do the hunting for him if they 
want to.” 

“There is one thing,” remarked Keith. “If any- 
thing has happened, it must be the same creature 
that tried to murder me last night . . . and I feel 
sure he has your jewels, too.” 

“What’s the use of telling a yam like that?” 
asked Dick scornfully. “No one will believe a 
word of it; I’m sure I don’t. I expect you’ve got 
the jewellery yourself all the time. You can all go 
to the devil together,” he cried with sudden passion. 
“I’m sick and tired of the whole business.” 

He turned and walked away quickly, and left to 
himself Keith began a careful and close search of 
the wood, though indeed to explore it thoroughly 


What Keith Found 217 


would have needed a great number of men working 
for a good many hours. But as well as he could 
Keith conducted a very careful search, taking es- 
pecial precautions whenever he had to pass be- 
neath leafy trees, and once or twice even climbing 
some whose foliage seemed especially thick. He 
passed at one time during his search that great wide- 
spreading oak beneath which he had endured his 
agony of the night before. A little way distant he 
found the grave into which while yet alive he had 
been thrust and from which he had so barely es- 
caped. He went to look at it with a kind of morbid 
interest and wonder, and when he found himself 
staring down into that grim and narrow hole, and 
saw the fresh turned earth piled up to one side, and 
smelt the odour of its dampness, and saw two 
worms wriggling in the mould, and remembered 
how awfully he had lain there and felt the earth 
flung down upon his prostrate form, all at once a 
panic fell upon him, a sudden, unreasoning, over- 
whelming panic, so that he turned and fled, faster 
and faster, rushing madly away at full speed 
through the quiet and pleasant wood till, as he ran, 
he tripped on something and fell. For a moment 
or two he lay trembling and shaking as with an 
ague, till presently he raised his head and glanced 
around, and then he saw that what he had stumbled 
on was the body of old Mr. Wentworth, lying prone 


218 The Solitary House 

and still, his face resting on one arm, his attitude 
very quiet and peaceful as though he slept. But 
round his throat was drawn tight a knotted hand- 
kerchief, and when Keith looked closer he saw that 
his face was distorted and swollen and that he was 
dead. One end of the handkerchief that had been 
the cause and instrument of his death lay loose, and 
on the corner of it Keith saw the monogram “R. W.” 
He remembered instantly that such a monogram — 
which he took to stand for Richard Wentworth — he 
had seen on a handkerchief in Dick’s hand when 
they were talking about emptying the rainwater tank 
to find the lost jewellery. 

He got to his feet and stood for a little time 
staring silently at the dead body and asking himself 
what had happened. Had Dick done this thing? 
he asked himself. Somehow, he did not much 
think so, but believed rather that here was a victim 
of the malign and ominous presence that haunted 
this strange place. 

But he saw also and very clearly that the evi- 
dence against Dick would probably appear conclu- 
sive and that his own story was not likely to be 
believed. He thought even that he himself stood 
in very considerable danger of being regarded as 
an accomplice. 

And Walters, the chauffeur, had gone for the 


What Keith Found 219 


police. Travelling in that swift motor-car he and 
they might be back here almost any minute. 

He stood there for a long time, considering and 
thinking, and he did not see that there was anything 
he could do except wait the trend of events, and all 
at once he felt utterly exhausted, so that he reeled 
with sheer fatigue as he stood. 

At last he turned away, without touching the 
body, since it was very sure life had long been 
extinct, and he walked slowly away back to the 
house. No one was about when he got there, but 
after he had knocked twice at the kitchen door 
Reenie came. She looked at him hesitatingly, and 
for a little neither of them spoke, and he did not 
know what to say or whether to tell her of the 
tragic discovery he had made. And his exhaustion 
and fatigue increased so that he felt he could 
hardly stand upright. 

“I think I had better speak to your husband if 
I may,” he said at last. 

She hesitated. 

“I don’t think he wants to see any one just now,” 
she said. 

“Well, I must; I must tell him something,” said 
Keith, and turned to stare at the wood that held such 
strange and grim secrets. “Well,” he said, “have 
you a sister called Esme?” 


220 The S o lit ar y House 


“How do you know that?” she cried, starting 
violently. 

“You see, she was here before you came,” he 
explained mildly. 

“Here; Esme here,” Reenie repeated. “When, 
how?” 

He did not answer; his exhaustion had become 
so great he thought he was about to faint. He 
caught hold of the doorpost to support himself and 
he muttered: 

“Do you know ... I think I’m done up. Well, 
old Mr. Wentworth is dead . . . murdered.” 

“Murdered?” she breathed. “Murdered? WTio 
. . . who . . .?” 

“The chauffeur chap has gone for the police,” 
Keith said. “The police will be sure to think your 
husband did it.” 

“God help us,” she breathed, watching him from 
great tragic eyes. “He has locked himself into 
the dining-room; he will not come or answer when 
I call.” 

“You had better tell him,” muttered Keith; “it 
won’t do any good; you must tell him . . . no, let 
me tell him.” He stopped and smiled foolishly. 
“I’m done,” he said; “I’m just about done up.” 

He sat down in a chair near; his eyes closed; in 
an instant, utterly worn out, he was fast asleep. 


PART FOUR 


\ 


/ 



CHAPTER XXII 


Waiting 

When Keith awoke it was to find himself in pitchy 
darkness. He could not for the first moment re- 
member where he was or what had happened, and 
he felt extraordinarily stiff and very cold. Each 
one of his limbs ached; at first when he tried to 
stand up he could not and fell back into the chair 
on which he had been sitting. 

“Are you awake?” said a voice from a little dis- 
tance. 

“Yes . . . yes,” he muttered confusedly. 
“Yes . . . where am I? How dark it is.” He 
heard a clock begin to strike and he counted twelve 
strokes. “Oh, it’s midnight,” he said, as though 
that explained all. 

He began to rub his stiff and aching limbs, and 
he remembered now very clearly all the crowded 
strange events of recent hours. 

“Have the police come?” he asked suddenly. 

“No,” answered the voice from the darkness he 
knew now to be Reenie’s. 

“That’s funny,” Keith said. He got to his feet 
223 


224 The Solitary House 


and began to grope his way towards the door where 
it seemed Reenie was sitting. “It’s so dark I can’t 
see anything,” he complained. “It is very strange 
the police have not come.” 

There was no answer, and he began to fumble in 
his pockets and finding a match he struck it and 
lighted the lamp that stood on the dresser. By its 
light he could see Reenie sitting on a small low 
stool in the doorway, her chin resting on her hand 
and her elbow on her knee. She was looking out 
into the night towards the wood, and she did not 
even glance round when he lighted the lamp, though 
it cast a long clear ray from the door out into the 
darkness. 

“Well, it’s funny the police haven’t come,” he 
said for the third time. 

He was feeling very hungry and he helped him- 
self to some biscuits that were on the diesser, and 
he poured himself out a glass of milk. When he 
had eaten a little he said : 

“Yes, it’s very funny the police haven’t come. 
Hasn’t Walters come back either?” 

“No,” she answered. 

He could not understand this delay at all, for he 
could conceive no reason for the inaction of the 
police. He said presently: 

“Your husband? Where is he? You told 
him . . .?” 


Waiting 


225 


“He is there,” she said, nodding at the dark night 
towards where the wood lay. 

Her words so startled Keith that he dropped the 
piece of biscuit he was putting to his mouth and 
stood for a moment very still. 

“There? Where?” he muttered. 

“There,” she repeated, nodding once more to- 
wards the wood. “He has not come back,” she 
said. 

“Oh • . . well,” he said at last, and began again 
to eat and drink. “Why did he go?” he said 
presently. 

“He saw a light,” she answered. “He saw a 
light, and so he went and he has not come back.” 

“Perhaps it was the police there,” Keith re- 
marked, but he knew that neither he nor she be- 
lieved this. 

“You said Esme was here?” Reenie sdd after a 
pause. “When was that? What did she say? 
How did you know she was my sister?” 

“I didn’t know; I only guessed,” he answered. 
“She didn’t tell me anything. She couldn’t. She 
had hurt her head and her memory had quite 
gone.” 

“Gone — her memory?” repeated Reenie. “But 
. . . do you mean she had had an accident? Was 
she hurt? What was it?” 

“An attack was made on her in the wood over 


226 The Solitary House 


there,” Keith answered. “Luckily I was close by. 
But when I found her she was insensible and her 
head had been hurt. I got the doctor and a nurse, 
and they pulled her round, but she couldn’t remem- 
ber a thing about herself. She didn’t even know 
her own name. We only knew her first name was 
Esme, because the nurse found some things of hers 
that were marked.” 

“But do you mean ... I don’t think I under- 
stand,” Reenie exclaimed. She was on her feet 
now. “Who attacked her? What for? Where is 
she now? Do you mean she is badly hurt?” 

“Oh, no, she is all right now physically,” an- 
swered Keith. “But she can’t remember anything 
about herself. The doctor thought it was only a 
temporary condition and would pass away in time. 
You see she had had a nasty blow on the head. 
She is staying in a village not far away at present. 
You can go and see her as soon as you like.” 

Reenie asked one or two more questions; he 
answered as best he could; and she seemed very 
much disturbed and excited. She spoke of going 
to her sister at once, even though it was the middle 
of the night, but hesitated when she thought of 
Dick. 

“I wish he would come back,” she said irrita- 
bly; “he said he wouldn’t be long. Why is he so 
long? What made you guess I was Esme’s sister, 


Waiting 


227 


if she couldn’t tell you anything about herself?” 

“You see,” Keith explained, “she had been here 
before. She was all right then, of course, and she 
spoke of her sister she was looking for. She 
seemed to think I ought to know where her sister 
was, and wouldn’t believe me when I said I didn’t. 
She appeared very upset, and she seemed to think 
I had done something I oughtn’t to have done, 
something in connection with the sister she spoke of. 
She wouldn’t listen to me at all.” 

“I expect she took you for Dick,” said Reenie 
slowly. “She must have got to know Dick and I 
were here; I think I can guess how. And so when 
she came and saw you she would think you were 
Dick — she had never seen him — and that you were 
keeping me away from her.” 

“I see,” said Keith, understanding now the con- 
tempt and anger that Esme had shown towards 
him on the occasion of their first meeting. “There 
was something frightened her,” he added, “while 
she was here. I don’t know what, but she went 
upstairs and seemed to get a scare and came down 
and went off. She came back afterwards, and 
while she was coming up the path through the wood 
the attack I told you of was made on her.” 

“In the wood?” Reenie repeated, and looked 
again into the darkness. “Dick is a long time,” 
she said ; “he told me he wouldn’t be long.” 


228 The Solitary House 


“He oughtn’t to have gone,” Keith muttered un- 
easily. 

“You will take me to Esme tomorrow?” she 
asked. 

“Oh, yes,” Keith said. “Perhaps her memory 
will come back when she sees you. The doctor 
thought anything connected with her former life 
might restore her memory at once. How long is it 
since your husband went into the wood?” 

“A long time,” she answered, shivering a little. 

“Well, what did he go for?” Keith muttered. 

“I told him what you said about his uncle,” she 
answered. “He said he didn’t believe it. He 
wouldn’t open the door at first, but I shouted 
through the keyhole. Then he came. He was very 
upset, though he said he didn’t believe you. He 
. . . he . . .” Her voice trailed off into a whis- 
per. “He thought people might suspect him.” 

She paused again and Keith nodded grimly. 
Her voice was a little unsteady as she went on: 

“He was ... I think he was afraid. We tried 
to wake you, but we couldn’t. Dick said it didn’t 
matter, nothing mattered. He said the police 
would come soon. We sat and waited for them; 
oh, how we waited, how long we waited. But they 
never came at all, though we sat and waited. It 
was dreadful . . . dreadful. After it was dark 
there was a light in the wood. We both saw it. 


Waiting 


229 


Dick said he would go and see what it was. He 
said perhaps it was the police. He said he must 
go, and he has never come back.” 

Keith moved to the door and stood there, staring 
out into the night. The wood showed only as a 
darker blur in the great blackness of the night, and 
as he stood and watched it he asked himself if some 
new tragedy had been added to those of which its 
silent groves and leafy trees had been a witness. 

Pressing his hands to his throbbing temples he 
tried to think clearly, but all his numbed and 
wearied mind was conscious only of a heavy sensa- 
tion of awe and an expectation of dreadful things to 
come. Reenie touched him softly on the arm. 

“Why is Dick so long?” she asked piteously. 
“Why has he not come back?” 

“So many never do, you see,” he muttered. 
“That wood . . .” 

“Do you think ... is there danger?” she asked. 
“Is he in danger, do you think?” 

“I don’t know,” he answered; “but he oughtn’t 
to have gone there because he saw a light. I 
wouldn’t go there after dark for any light, or any- 
thing else either.” 

“I asked him not to go,” she murmured. “He 
wouldn’t listen; he was not like himself; he was 
quite different.” She sat down again on her stool. 
“He wouldn’t listen to me ; he would go,” she said. 


230 T h e Solitary House 


He brought a chair and sat down beside her. 
They hardly spoke again, and when dawn came they 
were still sitting there and still there had been no 
sign of Dick, no sign of him coming back from the 
wood. The wood had taken him, too, and he had 
not come back from it. 

“We must get something to eat,” Keith said. 
“It’s very strange the police haven’t been.” 

He prepared some food, but she would not eat, 
though she was glad of the cup of hot tea he made 
her. He wrote a note to the police authorities to 
say he had been anxiously expecting them and that 
Mr. Wentworth, whose disappearance had been re- 
ported to them, was lying dead, apparently mur- 
dered, in the wood near the house. He repeated 
with emphasis that he could not understand the in- 
explicable delay in taking notice of the previous 
report made to them by Mr. Wentworth’s chauffeur, 
and he hoped that now they would act at once. 

When he had written this he went back to where 
Reenie still sat, chin on hand, elbow on knee, and 
waited till there arrived in due course the boy who 
every morning brought them their milk from his 
father’s farm. He seemed to understand some- 
thing was seriously amiss, and promised with much 
excitement to take Keith’s letter on his bicycle to the 
nearest police station. 

This note sent off, it seemed to Keith there was 


Waiting 


231 


nothing else to do but wait, and he went back to 
Reenie, who had scarcely moved, but still sat at the 
kitchen door like a carven statue of despair. 

“Dick has not come back,” she said to him. 

“No,” he said, staring at the wood. “No.” 

“Do you think he ever will?” she asked. 

“Oh, yes,” he said; “yes, of course.” 

“I don’t,” she muttered. “I don’t.” 

Keith felt himself shivering at her dull and 
ominous tone, and indeed the heavy menace of the 
wood oppressed him also almost beyond bearing, 
for in his heart he thought it likely that the fate that 
had overtaken the uncle had also overwhelmed the 
nephew. 

“Have you the jewellery?” Reenie asked him 
once. 

“No,” he answered. 

“Dick thinks you have,” she said. 

“I know, but he is wrong; he ought to be able to 
see that,” Keith answered. He added as if to 
clinch the matter and make his honesty perfectly 
clear and plain: “I mean some day to marry 
Esme.” 

Even in her apathy she started at that. 

“You!” she exclaimed, “oh, no, oh, no.” 

“I mean to,” he repeated. 

She did not speak again, but he saw her looking 
at him mistrustfully, and they watched and waited 


232 The Solitary House 

again for a long time, till presently they heard the 
sound of a motor approaching by the road. Keith 
went round to the front of the house. The car had 
stopped, and two men who had descended from it 
were walking together up the hill. They were both 
in police uniform, and Keith went forward to meet 
them. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


The Police Arrive 

He stood still and watched these two men coming 
towards him, waiting for them and thinking to him- 
self that their advent meant in all probability ruin 
and disgrace for himself. Yet he did not see what 
else he could have done but summon their assist- 
ance. He had, however, a strong conviction that 
not a word of the extraordinary story he had to tell 
would be believed by them, and he was sure he 
would be suspected of the theft of the missing 
jewellery, perhaps even of being an accomplice in 
the murder of old Mr. Wentworth. In addition, 
too, to all that there would be, he still supposed, 
the likelihood of being arrested and charged on 
account of his affray with his late skipper and the 
constable that gentleman had summoned to his as- 
sistance. 

It came to him that all his hopes and dreams of 
re-establishing his position in the world and win- 
ning Esme were for ever doomed^ he saw very 
clearly that no chance remained to him. 

233 


234 The Solitary House 

His expression was not cheerful then, his manner 
not very confident or welcoming, as he stood and 
waited for the two police officials, and he felt 
instinctively that their first impression of him as 
they drew nearer was anything but favourable. 
Indeed, it is only truth to confess that his appear- 
ance at this moment was not prepossessing, for he 
had made little attempt to tidy himself after his 
long sleep in the chair in the kitchen and his orig- 
inally ragged clothing had not been improved by 
his recent experiences. 

It was, therefore, a tall gaunt figure, untidy, 
hollow-eyed, fierce and almost primaeval-looking, 
that the two trim officials saw before them, and 
they exchanged a quick glance together; and one 
of them at least felt to see if the handcuffs in his 
pocket were ready for use. 

This one seemed the senior of the two, and was 
in fact Detective-Inspector Wilks of the county 
police. He was a man of middle height and 
square build, with a curiously square impassive 
face that seemed as though made of wood, and con- 
veyed at first sight an impression of dull stupidity 
that only the very alert and eager light-blue eyes 
contradicted. His companion was Detective-Ser- 
geant Price, a tall, melancholy-looking man with a 
pale face, pale eyes, and an indeterminate mous- 
tache. He was considerably younger than his 


The Police Arrive 235 


companion, but he had already a high reputation 
for successful detective work, which he had earned 
not so much by any alertness or vigour of intellect 
as by the exercise of a tremendous and unwearying 
patience. He never tired and never gave up, and 
these are perhaps the greatest qualities a detective 
can have. 

“Does Mr. Keith Norton live here?” demanded 
Inspector Wells of Keith in a somewhat rough and 
harsh voice and without any preliminary greeting. 

“That is my name,” answered Keith. 

“Eh?” said the Inspector, very much surprised, 
for he could not at first reconcile Keith’s letter, 
well written and well expressed and plainly that of 
an educated man, with his extraordinarily ragged 
and battered appearance. “Did you write this?” 
he asked, producing Keith’s note. 

“Yes,” said Keith. “I have been expecting you 
ever since noon yesterday. Why didn’t you come 
before?” 

“This is the first we have heard,” said Wilks. 
“Who is this Walters you talk about in your note? 
We have heard nothing of him.” 

“You haven’t?” exclaimed Keith, very much sur- 
prised and somewhat doubtful. “But he went off 
yesterday in Mr. Wentworth’s car straight to you. 
Do you mean he never got to you?” 

“Your letter this morning was the first thing we 


236 T he Solitary House 


heard,” repeated the Inspector. “I happened to 
be there on some other business when it arrived, so 
I came straight on to see what it meant. Do you 
say that a Mr. Wentworth has been murdered?” 

“He is lying dead in Files Wood over there,” 
answered Keith. “I think there is no doubt he has 
been murdered.” 

“Can you take us to the body?” 

“Yes.” 

“Who is he?” 

“I don’t know much about him. I saw him yes- 
terday for the first time. But I understand he is a 
very wealthy and well-known business man.” 

“Have you any idea who committed the crime?” 

Keith Hesitated. 

“I think I had better tell you the whole story 
from the beginning,” he said. “It is both long and 
strange. I don’t understand myself a good deal of 
what has happened. You had better come up to the 
house.” 

“Are you alone?” 

“Except for a lady, who is the wife of Mr. Went- 
worth’s nephew, Dick Wentworth.” 

“Where is he?” asked the Inspector sharply. 

“I don’t know,” Keith answered. “He went into 
the wood late last night and he has not come 
back.” 

“Why didn’t you come to us last night?” asked 


The Police Arrive 237 


Wilks. “After you had found Mr. Wentworth’s 
body and knew something very serious had hap- 
pened, why didn’t you come to us yourself, instead 
of merely waiting for this Walters?” 

“I was done up,” answered Keith. “I had had 
a pretty bad time and I fell asleep in a chair and 
slept till midnight. When I woke Mrs. Wentworth 
was alone. She said Dick Wentworth had seen a 
light in the wood and had gone after it and had 
not returned. I could not leave her there alone and 
I was expecting you every minute. I never 
dreamed Walters might not have taken his message. 
I don’t understand what can have prevented him. 
I thought the light in the wood they saw was per- 
haps your people.” • 

The Inspector grunted and looked at his com- 
panion as if to ask him what he thought of a story 
that seemed perhaps all the more suspicious for 
being so plausible, and Price, almost imperceptibly 
elevating his eyebrows, managed to convey the 
impression that in his opinion it would be as well 
to arrest Keith on the spot. The Inspector was 
inclined to be of the same opinion, and it hap- 
pened that deep in thought he kicked up the turf 
where they were standing with his heel. 

“Hullo, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed. 

For Keith had turned deathly pale and he stag- 
gered as though he were about to fall. Instinctively 


238 The Solitary House 


Price put out a hand to support him p but he re- 
covered himself by an effort. 

“Don’t do that,” he said in tones that were 
barely understandable. 

“Do what? What do you mean?” asked the In- 
spector, puzzled and suspicious. 

“It’s the smell of damp earth; I can’t stand the 
smell of earth,” Keith muttered, pointing to the 
little hole Wilks had dug with his heel in the 
ground. “I am sorry,” he added; “I am better 
now; I thought I was going to faint.” 

The Inspector looked at the Sergeant and the 
Sergeant looked at the Inspector, and both of them 
thought, and knew the other thought, that this 
was some deep trick of which the purpose was not 
yet apparent. 

“Well, I think first of all,” said Mr. Wilks, “you 
had better show us where Mr. Wentworth’s body is 
lying, and then you can tell us all you know.” 

“Very well,” answered Keith, “but I must tell 
Mrs. Wentworth you are here.” 

He led the way round the house, the two police 
officers watching him very closely all the time, to 
where Reenie was still sitting, chin on hand, elbow 
on knee, as she had sat almost without moving all 
through the long dark night and now in the bright 
warmth of the sun. 


The Police Arrive 239 


She looked up as they came near, ^ but in a dull 
and indifferent manner. 

“He has not come back,” she said. 

“Who do you mean, ma’am?” asked Wilks. 

“My husband; he went into the wood last night 
and he has not come out again.” 

Wilks did not answer, but he glanced at Price 
again, and the Sergeant’s thin lips formed in- 
audibly the word : 

“Bunked.” 

“Well, ma’am, don’t worry,” said the Inspector 
briskly, “we’ll soon find him for you; we are ” 

He paused abruptly, for she had looked up at 
him, and he read in her eyes so deep and tragic a 
fear that his facile official assurance suddenly 
ceased. 

“Oh, well,” he said awkwardly. 

“You see,” she explained slowly and carefully, 
as one might speak to a little child, “you see, he 
went . . . and he has not come back again.” 

The Inspector rubbed his nose and glanced at the 
Sergeant, who this time made no response, but 
turned and looked at the green and shady depths 
of Files Wood as though wondering what was hid- 
den there. 

“We are going into the wood now,” said Keith 
to her. “I hope we shall find him there all right. 


* 240 The Solitary House 


I don’t mean there is any danger for you, but I 
think you ought to go indoors and keep the place 
locked till we come back.” 

“I will wait here,” she said. 

“Have you a whistle?” Keith said to the Inspec- 
tor, for her manner was not that of one open to 
argument. “If you have, I think you might give 
it her. Then, if Mrs. Wentworth needs help, she 
could blow it.” 

“What help could she need?” the Inspector 
asked. 

“Strange things have happened,” answered 
Keith sombrely. 

The Inspector still looked doubtful, but gave 
Reenie his whistle as Keith had suggested, and then 
all three of them started towards the wood. As 
they approached it Keith thought he saw a move- 
ment behind a bush not far away and Price, who 
had sharp eyes, saw it, too. 

“Some one watching us from behind there, I 
think, sir,” he said. 

Wilks whispered something, signed to Keith to 
follow, and they made from opposite directions a 
swift descent upon the bush. But when they got 
there they found nothing and no sign that any liv- 
ing thing had ever been there, and they both looked 
a trifle discomfited. Keith laughed grimly. 

“It won’t be so easy as all that,” he said. 


The Police Arrive 241 

The others did not answer, and they went on 
again. 

“What do you think has become of that lady’s 
husband?” the Inspector asked after a moment 
or two. 

“I don’t know,” Keith answered. “I have been 
nearly murdered in this wood myself, and Mr. 
Wentworth has met his death in it, and Dick Went- 
worth has never returned from it.” 

The Inspector looked at him sideways and very 
doubtfully. 

“Who nearly murdered you?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” said Keith. They were not far 
from the spot where stood that great, prominent 
oak beneath which he had endured his agony. “Do 
you see that tree?” he said. “Under it I was at- 
tacked and near by my grave was dug.” 

“Well, you don’t seem to have occupied it, yet,” 
remarked the Inspector. 

“Oh, yes, I have,” answered Keith, and they both 
looked at him again in a very puzzled and doubtful 
manner, for they did not understand his words, 
and yet something in his tone and manner seemed 
to tell of what he had been through. “It is why I 
don’t like the smell of damp earth,” he explained. 

“Oh,” said Wilks, still more doubtfully and still 
more puzzled. “You might show us as we are so 
near,” he remarked. 


242 The S o lit ar y House 


Somewhat reluctantly Keith led them to the spot 

“Do you mean there?” asked Wilks, pointing. 
“Over there where that mound is?” 

“Yes,” said Keith; “it has been filled in. I 
suppose they thought it looked rather too sugges- 
tive as it was, and that they had better fill it up 
again.” 

“Who do you mean by ‘they’?” asked the In- 
spector. 

“I don’t know,” answered Keith. “I had better 
tell you everything from the start. Then you will 
know as much as I do, which isn’t much. Only I 
thought you wanted to see Mr, Wentworth’s body 
first of all?” 

They went on again and came presently to where 
the body lay just as Keith had left it. It had not 
been touched, and the two police officers knelt down 
beside it. Their faces were grave now, for 
hitherto they had not been quite certain that Keith’s 
story would not turn out to conceal some trick or 
fraud of some sort, or perhaps to be merely the 
ravings of a lunatic. 

“He has been strangled with this handkerchief,” 
the Inspector said at last. “Do you know whose it 
is?” he asked Keith. “It is marked 6 R. W.’ ” 

“It belongs to Dick Wentworth,” Keith answered 
reluctantly. “The dead man’s nephew and the 
husband of the lady we have just left.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


The Search 

“I thought as much,” said the Inspector, and he 
turned on Keith a slow gaze that said very plainly: 

“Now, are you merely an accomplice — or are 
you the murderer yourself?” 

“I think I had better tell you what I know,” re- 
marked Keith. 

“Yes, yes,” agreed the Inspector. “Yes. One 
thing. Do you think Richard Wentworth has done 
this?” 

With a slight gesture of one hand he indicated the 
dead man, and Keith shook his head. 

“Why not?” the Inspector asked. 

“Well, I don’t,” Keith said. 

“I see,” answered the Inspector stolidly. “Well, 
please tell us everything you know about this busi- 
ness. Cut it as short as you can, but don’t leave 
anything out. Oh, and begin at the beginning.” 

Obeying these instructions as well as he could, 
Keith told his story and the two officials listened 
impassively, the Sergeant taking notes in shorthand 
'243 


244 The Solitary House 

the while. It was a long and involved story, 
though Keith told it as briefly as he could, and 
during it he saw more than once Inspector and 
Sergeant exchange swift, incredulous glances. 

When he had finished there was silence for a 
little, broken soon by the hooting of a motor horn 
at a little distance. 

“I expect that’s Captain Wallace,” said the 
Inspector. “I sent a copy of your note to him,” he 
explained to Keith, “and he has come on. We 
had better go and meet him and see what action 
he thinks ought to be taken.” 

They left the body lying where it was till ar- 
rangements could be made for its removal, and 
retraced their steps through the wood till they 
came out near the house where the new-comer, Cap- 
tain Wallace, the chief constable of the county, had 
just arrived. He was a tall, military-looking man, 
with a bronzed face, and a very quick, brisk, au- 
thoritative manner, and he was a good organizer and 
disciplinarian with, however, very little idea of or 
experience in detective work. Keith noticed that 
he had brought three constables with him, and In- 
spector Wilks, telling Keith to wait a little apart, 
went forward and engaged in a long talk with his 
superior. Then they went together to Reenie and 
asked her a number of questions. She answered 
very reluctantly and indifferently, but that served 


The Search 


245 


to confirm Keith’s story in some of its details. 
Sergeant Price had vanished from the scene, but 
two of the stalwart constables kept always very near 
to Keith and watched him closely, so that he felt he 
was already practically a prisoner. After a time 
Captain Wallace and Inspector Wilks came back to 
Keith, and the Captain said: 

“The Inspector has repeated your extraordinary 
story to me, and, frankly, I am not very much in- 
clined to believe it. It may be true ” 

“Thank you for thinking so,” interposed Keith, 
whose mood was beginning to grow angry and reck- 
less. 

“ — but we require some proof,” continued the 
Captain, frowning at the interruption. “As I un- 
derstand it, you say the murder of Mr. Wentworth 
has been committed by some being of which you 
give no description and have no certain knowledge 
but believe to inhabit this wood. I must say that, 
on the face of it, it appears more likely that the 
criminal is the disinherited nephew you tell us 
about. I am afraid I must add there appears to be 
reasonable suspicion that . you have acted as his 
accomplice.” 

“Am I under arrest?” inquired Keith. 

“No,” said the Captain, “no, not at present, un- 
less you make it necessary for us to take that step.” 

“I see,” said Keith, “you mean I am really but 


246 The Solitary House 

that you wish to avoid the responsibility of formal 
action.” 

This was so palpable a hit that the Captain 
looked slightly taken aback and hesitated. 

“Young man,” said the Inspector severely, “you 
are in a very serious position, and you will not do 
yourself any good by adopting that sort of tone. 
You had better realize that.” 

“My dear sir,” retorted Keith, “I am in so se- 
rious a position that I care very little what tone I 
adopt or whether I do myself any good or not.” 

“That will do,” interposed Captain Wallace 
sharply. “I don’t think, Mr. Norton, that I am 
justified in placing you under arrest at this moment, 
but my opinion may change — and will change if 
you do not give us every assistance in your power.” 

“It was in order to do so that I sent for you,” 
remarked Keith. “Permit me to remark that if I 
were a guilty man I could have placed myself be- 
yond reach of pursuit long before what has hap- 
pened could have been discovered.” 

“We are not forgetting that you sent for us,” said 
Captain Wallace. “We are taking that fact into 
full consideration. But there has been a long de- 
lay. You say the responsibility for that rests with 
Mr. Wentworth’s chauffeur. We are endeavouring 
to get in touch with him now so as to hear what he 
has to say, and if his story confirms yours that will 


The Search 


247 


be a great point in your favour. At present we are 
waiting till we can find him and Mr. Richard 
Wentworth. You can give us no hint where Rich- 
ard Wentworth is likely to be?” 

“I do not think that he is far away,” said Keith, 
glancing over his shoulder at the quiet, green 
depths of the wood. 

“You mean . . .?” asked the Captain and 
paused. 

“Yes, I do,” answered Keith. “He is either 
there or he has bolted. I don’t think he has bolted, 
somehow. But there is some one else you want to 
find. Bert Wentworth, the man I told you about 
who came to the house and who planned and helped 
in the attack on me in File’s Wood.” 

“Quite so,” agreed the Captain. “We shall find 
him in time if he is in England. Your theory is 
that he is the guilty person?” 

“Yes, though perhaps not actually in person,” 
answered Keith. “My belief is that he has an 
agent, an associate of some sort, perhaps a Hotten- 
tot or some one like that he brought back from 
South Africa. I believe that is the creature who 
made the attack on me and who murdered old Mr. 
Wentworth — at Bert Wentworth’s instigation.” 

“What object,” asked the Captain, “could Bert 
Wentworth have in murdering his step-father at the 
very moment when the old man had quarrelled with 


248 The Solitary House 


his nephew so that presumably there would be a 
chance for him to effect a reconciliation?” 

“I don’t think there would have been any chance 
of that,” answered Keith. “I don’t think old Mr. 
Wentworth was that sort. But if he were dead and 
Dick Wentworth hanged for the murder, Bert Went- 
worth would inherit everything, I understand, pro- 
vided the old man died intestate. And he had 
just burned his will.” 

Captain Wallace pursed his lips into a whistle, 
but no sound came, and the Inspector looked very 
grave. They drew aside to consult a little, and 
then told Keith to wait at the house — one of the 
constables stayed with him — while they and the 
other two policemen went to where the murdered 
man’s body still lay. 

They took with them a rough stretcher they had 
made of poles and sacking and brought back the 
body, which they placed in the dining-room on a 
couch hastily prepared for it. Before long a doc- 
tor they had sent for appeared and made an exam- 
ination that revealed nothing new, and afterwards 
Sergeant Price reappeared with a following of 
about a dozen men. 

“I am going to make a thorough search of the 
wood from end to end,” Captain Wallace said to 
Keith. “If there is any truth in your theory that 
some Hottentot or other being has been living in 


The Search 249 

it for the last three or four weeks, we shall cer- 
tainly find some trace or another of him.” 

Keith agreed that that was certain, and the little 
army started out. They were well provided with 
ropes, sticks, and other appliances, and they pro- 
ceeded to make a thorough, systematic, and very 
complete search of the wood from one end of it to 
the other, till every bush and comer, every patch 
of bracken or high grass, every rabbit’s burrow, or 
rat’s hole, had been minutely examined, not one 
square inch escaping. 

It was late when their task was completed, and 
they found themselves at the farther end of the 
wood, hot, weary, and by no means in a good tem- 
per, for they had seen nothing, found nothing, dis- 
covered no faintest corroboration of Keith’s 
theories. 

“Well, Mr. Norton, what do you say now?” Cap- 
tain Wallace said to him. 

“I can say no more than I have already,” an- 
swered Keith shortly. 

The Captain looked at him and was more than 
half inclined to order his arrest on the spot. Now 
that his story appeared to be proved untrue in one 
of its most important details, the Captain was in- 
clined to suppose that all the rest was invented 
also. For that if any living creature, such as 
Keith described, had inhabited the wood for any 


250 The Solitary House 

length of time he must have left plain traces of his 
sojourn appeared certain to them all. 

“Certainly no one has been using this wood as a 
hiding place,” he declared, “and it is equally cer- 
tain that Mr. Richard Wentworth is not in it, alive 
or dead. I think we may be sure of that also. He 
could not have avoided us living, and we must have 
found him dead. I am afraid a warrant will have 
to be issued for his arrest.” 

Keith did not answer, for he himself was puzzled 
and disappointed by the total failure of their great 
drive. They turned back through the wood, and as 
they came to that huge and prominent oak where he 
had suffered so much, and where their search had 
been this day especially close, Captain Wallace 
stopped and asked Keith one or two sharp ques- 
tions, as if to find out whether he still adhered to 
his previous story. 

“You say you were actually pushed into the 
grave dug for you?” he asked. 

“Yes,” answered Keith in a low voice, for there 
were times still when the memory of those dreadful 
moments seemed to grip him with fresh and awful 
terror, terror so great he had sometimes a fear that 
his very brain would reel before it and be over- 
thrown. 

Captain Wallace looked curiously at him, and 


The Search 


251 


then at the mound of fresh dug earth that marked 
the spot where the grave had been. 

“It has been filled in again,” he remarked. 

“Looked a bit suggestive, I suppose, sir,” said 
the Inspector. 

“I was just thinking,” said the Captain, “it might 
have served as a convenient hiding place — those 
missing jewels perhaps. Or even a cigarette end 
or a scrap of paper or anything. I think we might 
have the earth removed again just to make sure 
there is nothing there.” 

“Very good, sir,” said the Inspector. 

He gave some orders accordingly, and two or 
three of the men set to work, and it was not long 
before they uncovered the swollen, blackened 
features of dead Dick Wentworth. 


CHAPTER XXV 


File’s Wood at Night 

It was late now, and under the trees the shadows 
were beginning to grow long and dark as the night 
came swiftly down upon the land. One of the men 
had a lantern and he lighted it, and by its dim 
rays the earth was cleared away from this new 
victim and his body gently raised and placed 
upon the ground near by. Instinctively the by- 
standers removed their hats, and by the side of the 
dead man knelt Captain Wallace and Inspector 
Wilks, making a hasty examination that revealed 
no more than was already patent, that death had 
been caused by strangulation. 

A stretcher was improvised and the body placed 
on it, and in the darkness that was now nearly com- 
plete a little procession formed, the man with the 
lantern going first, the stretcher-bearers with their 
burden coming next, and then the rest of the party, 
the rear being brought up by Captain Wallace and 
Inspector Wilks, who were deep in consultation to- 
gether over this new development. 

252 


File’s Wood at N i ght 253 


No one took any notice of Keith, who for the 
moment thought himself forgotten. But he fol- 
lowed with the rest, and all at once was surprised 
to find Sergeant Price by his side. 

“I dare say I was mistaken,” said the Sergeant 
apologetically, “but I thought I heard something 
moving over there.” He nodded towards their 
left. “Likely it was a rabbit or something,” he 
said; “there was nothing when I went.” 

Keith turned and looked intently in the direction 
indicated, and then glanced towards the Captain. 
He was on the point of suggesting that another 
general search should be made, but reflected that 
when they had failed so utterly in the broad day- 
light, how could they hope tc succeed in this dense, 
baffling darkness? The Sergeant had seen his 
movement and said again: 

“There was nothing there. I expect it was just 
my fancy.” 

Keith did not answer, for he was not so sure of 
that, and then Captain Wallace came towards them 
and the Sergeant discreetly faded away. 

“This is a terrible business, Mr. Norton,” the 
Captain said to him in a tone more friendly than 
any he had used hitherto, “but at any rate it ap- 
pears to confirm very markedly what you have told 
us. I must say that I was inclined to suspect young 
Mr. Wentworth of being his uncle’s murderer, but 


254 The Solitary House 

now I am inclined to agree with you that the step- 
son is more likely to be the guilty person. We 
must set to work to find him. But, to speak 
frankly, it is just as well that Mrs. Wentworth can 
prove you were sleeping in the house when her 
husband left it and that you remained there after 
you woke. Otherwise . . .” 

“Otherwise I might be in some danger of the gal- 
lows,” Keith completed the sentence. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” exclaimed the Cap- 
tain. “No, no. But there would have been un- 
pleasant suspicions to face, and you might have 
been exposed to a good deal of annoyance and in- 
convenience. Now I want to ask you one or two 
questions. This jewellery you found and that van- 
ished afterwards, what do you think became of 
that?” 

“Stolen,” answered Keith, “by the same man or 
creature, or whatever it is, that has been lurking 
in this wood so long, that may very likely be watch- 
ing us at this moment.” 

“Surely not,” protested the Captain; “surely 
you can’t still believe any one is in the wood after 
the way we have beaten it from one end to the 
other?” 

“You certainly made a very thorough search,” 
agreed Keith; “all the same. . . .” 

“Quite impossible,” declared the Captain with 


File’s Wood at Night 255 

emphasis. 44 Another thing, the young lady you 
speak of as Mrs. Wentworth’s sister? I under- 
stand she is staying not far from here.” 

44 Yes,” answered Keith. 44 I don’t know what the 
place is called, but I know my way to it.” 

44 I think it would be as well if you went over 
at once and brought her here,” said the Captain. 
“You will understand from my making the sugges- 
tion that I am quite convinced of your innocence, 
but I shall have to ask you to take Sergeant Price 
and one of our men with you, and I want you to 
promise to say nothing to her, nothing at all, of 
what has happened today. I wish to hear her story 
myself. That is partly why I am sending for her, 
but also if she is Mrs. Wentworth’s sister it will 
be as well for her to be here. Mrs. Wentworth is 
quite alone, and she ought to have another woman 
with her. As soon as you can get the sister here I 
shall send them off together in the car to a place 
where they can be put up for the night till their 
friends can be communicated with. It isn’t fit for 
Mrs. Wentworth to stay here any longer than can be 
helped.” 

“You know Miss Esme has lost her memory 
owing to an attack made on her in the wood?” asked 
Keith. 

“I understood so from what Wilks said you told 
him,” answered the Captain. “That is the worst of 


256 The Solitary House 

this case, there are so many side complications like 
this young lady’s loss of memory and the disap- 
pearance of Mr. Wentworth’s chauffeur. But I 
hope the sight of young Mrs. Wentworth may help 
to restore her sister’s memory, and in any case she 
should be able to give us useful information. How 
long will it take you to get there and back?” 

“It is about two hours’ walk,” answered Keith, 
“or a little more.” 

“You must walk, I am afraid;” said the Captain. 
“I can’t spare you a car; they are both in use. 
There is a lot to arrange. You had better get 
something to eat, and then you and Price can start. 
Can you be back before midnight?” 

“I think so,” answered Keith. “Oh, yes, quite 
easily.” 

“Good,” said the Captain. “I will tell Price to 
be ready, and now I want as exact and close a 
description of the man you believe to be Bert 
Wentworth as you can give me. Unfortunately, 
Mrs. Wentworth has never met him.” 

Keith gave as accurate and detailed a description 
as he could of the man he had twice seen, and the 
Captain thanked him and went to speak to Wilks. 
There was much to do, much to arrange and see 
about, and the two officials became immersed in 
the reports they were making and the plans they 
were laying for the pursuit of the suspected persons. 


File's Wood at Night 257 


Keith managed to find some food in the kitchen 
and ate it there. Reenie had disappeared. She 
had been asked to identify the body of her dead 
husband and was now alone in one of the upper 
rooms, lying on the bed in a stupor of grief and 
fatigue. While Keith was still satisfying his appe- 
tate Price came in and announced that he was to 
accompany him alone. 

“There are such a lot of messages going off,’* 
he said, “and one thing and another to be seen 
to, they can’t spare another of our chaps.” 

Keith made no remark. He would have pre- 
ferred to go alone, but as that was not to be he did 
not mind whether he had one companion or two. 

“A terrible lot to do in these cases,” Price went 
on and sighed with heart-felt gratitude. “Thank 
the Lord,” he said, “the papers haven’t got hold of 
it yet. But they will soon. Tomorrow there will 
be a dozen journalists poking their noses into every- 
thing and worrying you out of your seven senses.” 
He paused, and his countenance relaxed momen- 
tarily. “Not but what they are liberal enough 
with their cigars,” he admitted. “Last time I was 
in a big case — and it was a kindergarten affair to 
this — I got smokes enough to last me nearly six 
weeks. Good ones, too. But I earned ’em all with 
the worry and the trouble I had.” 

He seemed in a chatty and friendly mood, but 


258 The Solitary House 

Keith did not respond very freely. He was in no 
temper for talk, and besides he had a strong feeling 
that the Sergeant had been told to try to draw him 
out. So he scarcely made any answer, and as soon 
as he had finished his meal he rose to his feet and 
suggested that they should start. 

The night was very dark, for the moon had not 
yet risen, but the Sergeant had provided himself 
with a powerful electric torch with which he some- 
times lighted up their path. Their way led them at 
first through Files Wood, and the Sergeant, who still 
seemed inclined to chat, in spite of Keith’s failure 
to respond, remarked that a good many of the men 
who had helped in the search that afternoon seemed 
very frightened of the place. 

“One of them,” remarked the Sergeant, “told me 
he wouldn’t go through it at night for a hundred 
pounds. Seemed to think the devil visited it after 
dark.” 

“I don’t know that he was far wrong there,” 
observed Keith grimly. 

“Oh,” the Sergeant explained, “but he meant a 
real devil.” 

“So do I,” said Keith, “very real.” 

“Well,” declared the Sergeant jovially, “if I see 
him I’ll soon clap the handbolts on him. It would 
be a big capture, wouldn’t it?” 


File’s Wood at Nig h t 259 


“It would,” agreed Keith, and as they went far- 
ther into the wood the Sergeant fell silent. 

It was very silent, very still, in the dark night 
under the heavy branches of the trees and where 
the bushes grew thick and close. Once or twice 
the Sergeant sent the strong beam of his electric 
torch questing through the darkness; once or twice 
they halted, imagining they had heard some sound ; 
once they both had the impression that they heard 
footsteps behind them. 

But when they stopped to listen they heard 
nothing, the silence lay around like a thing that 
could be felt, the darkness was as a huge mantle 
laid upon the earth. It seemed as if even the usual 
small murmurs of the night were hushed and that 
of the little timid creatures that venture out in the 
friendly dark, and make a general whispering and 
rustling in it as they go to and fro about their 
business, not one was now abroad. Perhaps the 
noisy hunt that had passed through the wood that 
day had driven them from their usual haunts and 
they had not yet returned. At any rate, whatever 
the cause, the quietness and stillness of the night 
made now an utter silence in which it seemed even 
the falling of a leaf must be heard distinctly, and 
the Sergeant muttered in Keith’s ear: 

“What a place; how quiet it is.” 


260 The Solitary House 

“Yes, very quiet,” agreed Keith, for this impres- 
sion of an unnatural stillness was strong upon him 
also. 

Instinctively they paused, and they both had the 
same idea that this utter stillness was made up of 
innumerable hostile and malign forces all waiting, 
all listening, all preparing. 

“Don’t wonder,” muttered the Sergeant, wiping 
his forehead, “don’t wonder as there’s some won’t 
come through here for a hundred pounds.” 

And his tone implied that henceforth he also was 
of that mind. 

“Hush,” muttered Keith, “hush.” 

It was not that he thought he heard anything, 
but he had the idea that if they made even the 
slightest sound in the midst of this immense silence 
that surrounded them they placed themselves some- 
how at a disadvantage. 

They stood there side by side, and it was to them 
as though the silence and the stillness grew more 
intense each moment. But now with that great 
silence there grew slowly into Keith’s conscious- 
ness a knowledge, a certainty, that somewhere near 
at hand there was some one living, some one 
breathing, some one in awful and horrid peril. 

No sound reached his ear, he could see nothing 
in the black darkness around, but all of it together, 
the silence, the stillness, the darkness, made up one 


File’s Wood a t Night 261 


wild cry of help that he felt in every fibre of his 
being and responded to utterly. 

Yet whence it came, this mute appeal, or from 
whom, he had no idea, only it was as though all 
the night were composed of it alone. 

And it seemed almost as though Sergeant Price 
had something of the same feeling, for he put his 
lips to Keith’s ear and whispered, almost in- 
audibly: 

“The devil’s loose round here tonight.” 

The silent appeal, the unuttered cry, that pulsed 
all through the night grew more urgent, stronger, 
then ceased suddenly, and once more they were 
alone in a quiet, dark wood, late at night, and that 
was all. 

“Lord love me,” muttered Price and wiped his 
face on which the perspiration streamed, “what 
was that, what was all that?” 

“Give me your torch,” Keith said. 

Instead of obeying Price switched it on himself 
and flung its beam like a great sword of light on 
the shadows around. 

It showed only some bracken, a bush or two, 
leaves and branches, all shining and silver in the 
clear light, and nothing else at all. 

“More to the left, the left,” said Keith sharply, 
and yet why he said this he did not know. 

The Sergeant swung the light carelessly round, 


262 The Solitary House 


and as it passed it showed for a moment on the 
pale, death-like face of Esme, unconscious as it 
seemed, framed in loose, streaming hair, and borne 
on the shoulders of some dark, crouching, indis- 
tinguishable form that in a moment instantly van- 
ished away with her into the darkness and was no 
more seen. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Tree Tops 

Keith shouted at the very top of his voice and 
very wildly and sprang forward, and behind him 
ran the Sergeant, throwing in front of them as they 
went the white ray of his torch that stabbed, as it 
were, far into the darkness with its long beam of 
light. 

Before them they saw, sometimes in the revealing 
beam of the electric torch, sometimes avoiding it 
and slipping away from it into the surrounding 
darkness, the strange, crouching, running figure 
they pursued, bending nearly double beneath the 
weight of the pale girl upon its back, running with 
an extraordinary rapidity, avoiding as though by 
magic all those obstacles of tangled bushes, spread- 
ing roots, outstretched branches, that hindered so 
much the two pursuers, twisting away into the night 
like a hunted fox that doubled on its tracks each 
time the questing ray of light came too near. 

But for the help they had from that leaping light 

263 


264 The Solitary House 

the fugitive would certainly have escaped into the 
gloom of the forest, with his helpless burden, for it 
seemed that darkness was to him no hindrance at 
all, and that he ran in it as surely and as swiftly as 
in the full light of noon. 

From behind as he ran on Keith heard a per- 
petual whistling, and he realized that Sergeant Price 
was calling for help that would soon come to them. 
But it daunted him, and made him strangely afraid, 
that the strange being they pursued seemed so sure 
and confident of escape he would not put down his 
captive, but still ran and raced through the night 
under the weight of her unconscious form. 

Keith caught his foot in some obstacle and fell, 
but in a moment was on his feet again, and he saw 
a little ahead, clearly outlined in the bright ray of 
the electric torch, a group of trees taller than their 
neighbours, standing apart as in a little grove, and 
running towards them a crouched grotesque form 
that seemed neither animal nor human but that 
bent beneath the weight of Esme, whose pale, death- 
like face and streaming hair Keith could plainly 
see. 

The next instant the light vanished and a dark- 
ness, blacker, deeper, more confusing, because of 
the lost light, fell around. In it Keith, rushing 
on, ran against the trunk of a tree and was flung 
back heavily. 


Tree Tops 265 

“The light, the light,” he shouted to Price at the 
top of his voice. 

“Battery’s run down,” answered briefly the Ser- 
geant from out of the darkness somewhere behind. 

Something like despair came upon Keith, for 
indeed the fugitive had seemed to keep well ahead 
of them even when they had the assistance of the 
light, and what chance of success had they now 
that the darkness was an impenetrable veil all 
around? 

But he ran on, making instinctively for that 
grove of tall trees he had seen for an instant before 
the light failed; and from behind the Sergeant’s 
whistle shrilled insistently. # He fell and was on his 
feet again at once, he stumbled and recovered him- 
self, and running on found he was in the midst of 
that grove near which the light had shown for a 
moment crouching fugitive and pale captive borne 
away. He had to slacken pace a little, for the tree 
trunks seemed to oppose him everywhere like a 
barrier to hold him back, but at last he was through 
them, and he was about to increase his speed and 
rush blindly on when all at once he halted suddenly. 
Why he did so he did not know, but he stood still 
as abruptly as though a hand had been laid upon 
him to restrain him. 

He stooped down and picked up a small stone 
his fingers touched and tossed it before him and 


266 The Solitary House 

listened. There was an appreciable interval before 
the sound of its fall came back to him, and he knew 
then where he was — on the edge of a steep, rocky 
hollow twenty or thirty feet deep and with pre- 
cipitous rocky sides. He remembered it well, for 
the bottom of this hollow, thickly overgrown, had 
been searched with especial care that afternoon 
during Captain Wallace’s great drive through the 
wood, since it had seemed a likely spot to be chosen 
for a hiding place. But nothing had been found 
there, and Keith remembered now that above the 
hollow, at the spot where it fell away so precipi- 
tously, he had noticed a grove of tall, wide-branched 
trees, evidently those by which he was now stand- 
ing. 

Another step or two forward would have hurled 
him over the edge to a fall a sheer twenty feet or 
more, and he heard the heavy step of the Sergeant 
coming quickly behind. 

“Careful, be careful,” he called, wondering if it 
was in the hope of entrapping them here that the 
fugitive had led them this way; “there is a twenty- 
foot drop, mind where you are going.” 

“Here’s the girl,” the Sergeant answered. 

“What? Where?” Keith cried, and ran in the 
direction whence the Sergeant’s voice seemed to 
come. 

In a moment or two he came to him and found 


Tree Tops 267 

him kneeling on the ground by Esme’s unconscious 
form. 

Keith had some matches in his pocket and he 
struck one. She did not seem hurt in any way, 
but she was in a deep swoon, and though he rubbed 
her hands gently between his and called her name 
he could not rouse her. 

“Blow your whistle,” he said to Price; “blow 
your whistle again.” 

The Sergeant obeyed. 

“They’re coming,” he said. “This is a rum go. 
Wonder what’s become of him? I suppose he 
found her getting too heavy and us too close be- 
hind, and so he dropped her to be able to get away 
quicker.” 

“Yes,” said Keith, “yes, I expect so. Yes. 
Perhaps he meant to come back again.” 

“Shouldn’t wonder,” agreed the Sergeant; “it 
was only good luck we came across her, and if we 
had gone on without seeing her he might have 
slipped back to get her again.” 

“Yes,” said Keith again. “Yes.” 

He was thinking quickly and deeply. It seemed 
strange to him that Esme had been abandoned just 
at the moment when the failure of the Sergeant’s 
torch had made escape so much easier. With a 
shiver of horror he reflected that if they had hur- 
ried on in pursuit without finding her she would 


268 The Solitary House 


have been left lying on the ground quite unpro- 
tected. Suppose that nameless, formless creature 
he had seen now three several times, but never 
clearly enough to identify, had not continued its 
flight, but was lurking somewhere near? Suppose 
this abandonment of Esme had been a device 
adopted in the hope that the pursuit would pass on 
and that then there would be opportunity to remove 
her to the secret hiding place Keith was persuaded 
existed somewhere near? 

Price blew his whistle once again, and this time 
there was an answer. “They’re coming,” he said. 

But Keith was not listening. He was staring up 
at the darkness above, made so much more intense 
by the tangle of overhanging branches beneath 
which they stood. 

“When you were a boy, did you ever go bird- 
nesting?” he said to the Sergeant. 

“Eh, what’s that? What do you mean?” asked 
Price. 

“I mean I’m glad I was a sailor once,” answered 
Keith. 

He caught hold of a branch above his head and 
swung himself up. 

“What’s the matter? What are you doing?” 
the Sergeant cried. 

“You stay where you are and look after Miss 
Esme and keep your wits about you,” answered 


Tree Tops 269 

Keith from over his head. “Don’t leave her what- 
ever you do. I’m going bird-nesting.” 

“Well, I’m jiggered,” muttered the Sergeant. 

Keith took hold of another branch and pulled 
himself up. It was difficult, chancy work in that 
confusing darkness, but he was cautious and agile, 
and he made sure of his holds and of his footing 
before he trusted himself to them. His eyes, too, 
were growing more accustomed to the dark. 

Up and up he went till he was nearly at the top, 
and then he paused and looked round from his 
lofty perch. Above him there was nothing but the 
stars and the drifting clouds, and the night breeze 
blew softly by. At a distance he saw lights moving 
on the ground — those of the party coming to their 
help, he hoped — and he saw lights, too, burning 
in the windows of the house. Elsewhere, around 
him and beneath, he looked upon a vast, impene- 
trable sea of darkness in which nothing was dis- 
cernible, nothing could be distinguished, save here 
and there a tree top so much taller than the others 
that it showed against the sky. For a moment he 
remained motionless, looking down on that enor- 
mous darkness and thinking of all that it had seen 
and hidden, and he listened intently but without 
hearing anything. Very cautiously he began his 
descent. 

He remembered a stout and strong branch he 


270 The Solitary House 

had passed on his upward climb, and when he came 
to it again he made his way carefully along it. 
As he had hoped it would, it reached almost to the 
next tree, and groping in the darkness he found a 
branch thrusting out from this second tree, by 
means of which he could swing himself into it. 

That, too, he climbed slowly and carefully in the 
dark till he reached almost to the top, and then he 
descended with equal caution. From this tree also, 
by the aid of interlocking branches, it was possible, 
though the operation was difficult and dangerous 
enough in that heavy darkness, to get to the next 
tree, and he began to realize that all these trees 
grew so close together, and were so joined by en- 
twined branches, it would almost certainly be pos- 
sible to pass from one to another through the 
whole grove without touching ground. 

“Might be handy, that,” he mused as from this 
third tree he clambered to a fourth, and as he 
swung himself from branch to branch he heard a 
faint, cautious sound very close to him and felt a 
branch on which he had just laid a hand quiver 
faintly as though some weight or pressure had just 
been carefully withdrawn. 

He knew then for certain that he had come to 
the heart of the mystery and that in this tree, 
swinging half way between earth and sky, he was 
not alone. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

A Strange Nest 

At that moment he would have given all he pos- 
sessed for one gleam or glimmer of light; and while 
he still peered into the darkness through the leafy 
branches where he crouched, and while he still felt 
the sinister quivering of that branch on which he 
had just laid his hand, he received a tremendous 
blow on the side. 

Perched insecurely in mid air as he was he 
lost his balance and fell, and for one moment 
thought that all was over as he dropped through 
space. But his desperate clutching hands caught 
a thin branch that bent beneath his weight but still 
held, so that he hung from it by his arms, his feet 
dangling in the air. He swung them up and they 
rested on another, stronger branch, and in an in- 
stant he had hauled himself into safety. Looking 
upwards, as he felt himself secure again, he saw 
above him, against the darkness of the sky through 
a gap in the widespread branches, a shapeless, 
crouching form clinging there like some foul and 
271 


272 The Solitary House 

monstrous bird of night and peering down as if to 
see what had become of him. 

The sight recalled to him all his energy and sent 
the blood pulsing once more through his veins with 
fiercest energy. He forgot his late narrow escape, 
he forgot dangers and risks, he forgot entirely all 
warnings of prudence and caution, he was con- 
scious only of the one desire to lay his hands upon 
this abominable creature that once more had nearly 
wrought his death, and almost literally he leaped 
upwards through the tree from branch to branch. 

Dense as was the darkness, one might almost 
have thought that he could see in it, so surely did he 
go, so certainly did his hands appear to find the 
best holds, with such perfect skill did his feet move 
from one precarious support to another. 

The creature above saw and heard him coming, 
and with an almost inconceivable agility swung 
away, and with an activity fully as extraordinary 
Keith swung after it. It leaped in the dark from 
branch to branch, and in the darkness from branch 
to branch he followed. It ran up a tree trunk so 
slender that the tree bent beneath its weight, and 
Keith was close behind, so that the tree bent further 
still. It leaped across a wide gap to another, 
sturdier tree, and Keith launched himself after 
through the night, knowing not whither his spring 
was taking him, but somehow or another finding 


A Strang e Nest 


273 


himself safely clinging to a branch that still quiv- 
ered from the impact of the creature he pursued. 

Down below Sergeant Price was shouting like a 
madman and blowing his whistle with all the breath 
he could spare, for the tumult in the trees above 
was as though a dozen demons fought there between 
earth and sky. From a distance there answered 
him shouting and the sound of men running as 
Captain Wallace and others of the police came 
hurrying to their help; and far above in the dark 
night there was still the sound of breaking branches 
and of tom twigs and leaves showering down as the 
trees swung and swayed beneath the strain of that 
strange wild contest of the air. 

From one branch above his head a dark form 
dropped so close to the Sergeant he might have 
laid hands upon him had he been more alert. But 
in a moment it was gone, running up the trunk of 
the nearest tree like a gigantic squirrel, and after 
it came Keith not more than six feet behind, and 
as agile, swift and fierce as the thing that he pur- 
sued. 

Almost at once as it seemed they were in mid 
air again, swinging from branch to branch, clinging 
to tree trunks, leaping across gaps, climbing with 
perfect certainty of hand and foot in that pitchy 
darkness where the slightest slip or miscalculation 
meant death and where even in the daylight slip 


274 The Solitary House 

or miscalculation must have seemed inevitable. 

But perhaps the darkness helped them both, and 
had they seen and realized the things they did, the 
wild risks they took, the mad leaps they made, the 
way they swayed and balanced themselves thirty 
feet up where a bird could scarce have found a foot- 
ing, the end would have come before it did. 

From one tree to another they passed, and all 
Keith’s innermost being was hot and fierce with ex- 
ultation as he felt himself the master of his enemy 
and that in this wild chase he gained. He was 
so close now he had twice been able to touch the 
fugitive; he could hear it muttering and chattering 
to itself like no human being, but with a note of ter- 
ror in its voice; and he felt well assured that very 
soon he would be able to lay hold upon it. He 
had indeed leaped down on the same branch as 
that on which the fugitive had just alighted when 
there came all at once a very bright, clear beam of 
light questing and seeking through the thick 
branches and spreading, leafy twigs. It showed 
him, chock by jowl with him, a squat, monstrous, 
hairy form with long arms held out to seize the next 
branch above their heads and next flashed straight 
into his own eyes, dazzling him and confusing and 
blinding him so utterly that he missed his hold, 
missed his footing, lost balance and fell. Luckily 
the tree limb next beneath broke his fall to some 


A Strange N e s t 


275 


extent, but it was not strong enough to bear the 
impact of his weight and it smashed off close to the 
trunk. He fell with it to the ground, but he was 
not hurt, though for the moment he lay still, dazed 
and half unconscious, while half a dozen lamps and 
lanterns concentrated their rays upon him. 

“Who is it? Who is it?” shouted a voice. 

“You fools, he’ll get away,” shouted Keith, lift- 
ing himself on one arm by a great effort. “Quick, 
quick, he’s up there somewhere; get all round, cut 
him off, quick.” 

He heard a voice giving sharp orders and men 
scattering to obey. Some one bent over him and 
a voice he recognized as that of Inspector Wilks 
said : 

“Are you hurt?” 

“No,” said Keith; “don’t let him get away.” 

“Oh, he won’t,” asserted Wilks encouragingly; 
“our men are all round.” 

“Where is the Sergeant? Is Esme safe?” he 
asked. 

“Yes, the young lady is all right,” answered 
Price for himself. “Good lord, what was it up 
there?” 

“I don’t know,” answered Keith. 

“I never heard the like,” the Sergeant said; 
“it was like a dozen madmen given wings and 
playing hide and seek up there.” 


276 The Solitary House 

“I should have had him in another minute,” 
Keith said, “but that light dazzled me.” 

All round now lights were showing from lamps 
and electric torches, so that about the grove was 
drawn a circle of illumination, while other lights 
flashed upon each tree in turn and voices shouted 
excitedly: 

“He’s here, he’s there, look, look, he’s gone.” 

“He’ll get away,” Keith said again; and he 
jumped up and ran to where at the foot of one of 
the trees, two or three men were pointing upwards 
and throwing aloft the beam of a powerful lantern. 

“There’s something there,” one was saying; “I 
can see something plainly.” 

“It does not move,” said another; “it is only a 
bird’s nest.” 

“A big nest,” said the first man ; “that’s no nest.” 

“I’ll try a shot,” said Captain Wallace, who was 
near at hand. 

He had a small automatic pistol and he fired 
two shots at the dark object that could be just barely 
discerned about twenty feet above their heads in 
the branches of the great tree at whose foot they 
stood. 

The shots had no effect, and Keith said: 

“I’ll go up.” 

Without waiting for an answer he swung himself 
into the tree. The climb was not difficult, for the 


A Strange N e s t 


277 


branches were strong and grew close together, and 
soon he reached the object they had seen from 
below. He found it to be an ingenious and elab- 
orate platform, or indeed kind of a huge nest, 
formed of small branches and twigs woven between 
stronger ones and strengthened further by a rope 
twined in and out and made secure to the tree’s 
trunk. 

This strange eyrie was about nine feet long by 
perhaps four wide and stretched on both sides of 
the trunk which formed its main support. The 
sides were protected by more rope, so that one 
could lie and sleep there in perfect security twenty 
feet above the earth. Overhead, the thick foliage 
of the tree formed a shelter that only the heaviest 
rain would be likely to penetrate. At one end two 
blankets were lying in a heap, and there were three 
or four pockets or hanging bags ingeniously made 
out of woven grass. In these were stored two dead 
rabbits that had been recently killed, some raw 
turnips and some fruit. Into another of these 
woven bags had been stuffed a quantity of 
rubbish, such as nut shells, egg shells, fruit skins 
and so on. Evidently the habitant of this place 
had been accustomed to remove with care all such 
waste matter lest its presence on the ground below 
might have given a clue to the position of his 
arboreal dwelling. 


278 The Solitary House 


Keith tested the platform and found it quite 
strong and secure, and standing on it and leaning 
over its edge he shouted down: 

“There is a place up here where some one has 
been living.” 

“Living?” a voice repeated. “How? Where? 
What do you mean?” 

“Come and see,” Keith answered; “it’s a kind 
of tree shelter; there are blankets here and food.” 

He heard sounds of climbing, and presently Cap- 
tain Wallace and another man appeared clambering 
cautiously up through the dark. They examined 
the eyrie very carefully, and with many muttered 
exclamations of astonishment and wonder. 

“What a place,” Captain Wallace said. “I ex- 
pect the fellow was snug here all the time we 
were hunting for him down below. I have heard 
of people living in caves and ditches, but tree 
tops . . .” , 

“One might be very snug up here,” said Keith. 
“It is strongly made and wouldn’t be at all un- 
comfortable. Of course it would only do for sum- 
mer. In winter it would be spotted at once.” 

They climbed down again, the Captain deciding 
that this human nest must be left as it was till morn- 
ing. Inspector Wilks came up to them as they 
reached the ground. 


A Strange Nest 


279 


“There’s no one in any of the other trees, sir,” 
he said; “they have all been searched.” 

“Well, we have found his little home anyhow,” 
remarked the Captain. 

But the occupant of that strange dwelling had 
made good his escape, for it was certain that he 
was no longer anywhere within the circle that had 
been drawn about the grove. The only clue to 
the manner of his escape came from one of the 
men who had been stationed at the edge of the 
hollow where it sloped down so precipitously and 
where Keith had so narrowly escaped falling. This 
man declared, like all the others, that he had seen 
and heard nothing and that nothing could by any 
possibility have got by him. Throwing the light 
of the lantern he held down the steep, almost sheer 
rocky drop of more than twenty feet he repeated: 

“No one could get down there in the dark, 
could they, now? Rum thing, though, I heard 
some rabbits playing in the bushes at the bottom, 
so I threw a stone at them to make them be quiet.” 

“Rabbits,” repeated Keith angrily, “rabbits at 
this time — that was him making his escape.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


The House Roof 

Since in that great darkness and vast tangle of 
trees pursuit was plainly useless, it was settled that 
nothing more should be attempted till daylight, 
though two men were to be left on guard to see that 
the strange eyrie Keith had discovered was not 
destroyed or damaged in any way. 

“Not that our friend of the tree tops is likely to 
turn here,” observed Captain Wallace, “though he 
won’t dodge us for long whatever he does. I shall 
have every man in the force on the look out for 
him tomorrow morning first thing. He hasn’t a 
chance of getting away.” 

Keith was not so optimistic, but at any rate he 
did not see what else could be done for the moment 
and he was besides busily occupied in trying to 
patch up his clothing and his skin, both of which 
had suffered severely during his wild climb through 
the trees. For the first time Captain Wallace no- 
ticed his condition by the rays of a lantern a man 
280 


The House Roof 


281 


was holding near, and uttered a loud exclamation. 

“Good heavens, what a state you are in,” he 
cried. 

“One doesn’t go climbing in the dark for noth- 
ing,” answered Keith. 

He was in fact nearly naked, for two-thirds of 
his clothing he had left in the trees above and the 
remaining third hung about him in ribbons, and as 
for his skin there was hardly a square inch that 
was not scratched and bleeding. Fortunately none 
of his wounds was serious, but he had lost a fair 
amount of blood, and he was so stiff and sore he 
could hardly stand. One man lent him a coat and 
another a piece of sacking, and another was di- 
rected to give him his arm to support him as he 
walked. 

Esme was still unconscious, and she was borne 
along on a stretcher hastily improvised from coats 
and branches. A messenger had already been sent 
off on a bicycle for a doctor, and when the little 
procession got back again to the house the burly 
policeman who had been left on guard came for- 
ward quickly. 

“A gentleman’s here, sir,” he said to the Cap- 
tain. “Said he was particular anxious to see you, 
sir, but he wouldn’t give his name.” 

“Where is he?” asked the Captain, wondering 
who this late visitor might be. 


282 The Solitary House 


“In the drawing-room, sir,” answered the con- 
stable. 

“I’ll see what he wants at once,” said the Cap- 
tain. “Wilks, put the lady down on one of the 
beds upstairs and wait till the doctor comes. See 
if you can rouse Mrs. Wentworth and tell her we 
think her sister is here and then come to me in the 
drawing-room.” 

As he spoke he opened the drawing-room door 
and entered, and came out again at once. 

“There is no one there,” he said sharply to the 
constable. 

The man looked very blank. 

“He said he would wait there, sir,” he protested, 
“and he hasn’t left the house, I’ll swear to that, 
for I’ve been standing here all the time.” 

“Well, he isn’t there now,” answered the Cap- 
tain; “he must have slipped out the back way. I 
wonder what the fellow came for?” 

He was evidently a good deal disturbed, and he 
was still more worried when a brief investigation 
showed that all the doors and windows were se- 
curely locked on the inside. 

“But that’s absurd,” exclaimed the Captain ir- 
ritably. “I never heard of such a case as this, 
one mad impossible thing after another. Is he 
hiding in a cupboard or under a bed or something? 
He must have gone again without your seeing 


The House Roof 283 

him,” he added to the policeman who had been 
on duty. * 

But the man insisted respectfully but very em- 
phatically that that was quite impossible, and the 
Captain repeated: 

“Well, then, where is he? What on earth can 
the fellow have wanted, coming at such an hour and 
then vanishing like this?” 

But an idea had come to Keith, and he said to the 
policeman: 

“Was this man tall with very long arms and legs 
that seemed too long for him to manage, and did 
his face look all skin and bone?” 

“Yes, he was like that,” agreed the man, and 
Keith turned excitedly to Captain Wallace. 

“It was Bert Wentworth!” he cried; “the man 
at the bottom of the whole thing.” 

“Bert Wentworth,” repeated Captain Wallace, 
looking more and more bewildered; “but, good 
heavens, what should he come here for? And if 
he did, why should he slip off again? And how 
could he without being seen? It’s — it’s absurd.” 

“There is Mrs. Wentworth,” said Keith. “You 
had better see she is all right.” 

Captain Wallace and Inspector Wilks both 
looked very taken aback at this suggestion that a 
new tragedy might have taken place, and they 
hurried together up the stairs. But Reenie an- 


284 The Solitary House 


swered at once when they knocked, and when they 
told her her sister was there she came quickly to 
the door. In answer to their inquiries, she said 
she had seen and heard nothing, and they carried 
Esme up and laid her on the bed in Reenie’s care, 
while a hurried search through the house made it 
certain that the stranger — Bert Wentworth or an- 
other — was no longer under that roof. 

“All the doors and windows are locked still on 
the inside, and I’ll take my oath he never passed 
me again,” declared the constable obstinately, “it 
fair beats me, it does.” 

“There’s the chimneys,” suggested some one 
from behind. 

“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Inspector Wilks ir- 
ritably; “they’re too narrow, and besides no one 
could climb them without making a lot of soot 
fall and there’s none showing.” 

But Keith, who was standing at the top of the 
stairs, remembered how equally mysteriously his 
assailant he now identified with the man of the 
woods he had seen this night had vanished on the 
occasion of his first sojourn under that roof. It 
seemed to him certain that there must be some 
means of leaving the house they had not found. 
He had noticed already that the skylight was rather 
wide open, and dim thoughts were moving in his 
mind. 


285 


The House Roof 

“Do you notice,” he said to Wilks, “that the 
skylight is wide open?” 

“Well, what about it?” snapped Wilks. “It 
doesn’t lead anywhere except to the roof, does it? 
You don’t suppose he is crawling about there, do 
you?” 

“I don’t know,” answered Keith; “but suppose 
you and I go out and see what we can see while 
one of your men keeps an eye open inside here.” 

Wilks shrugged his shoulder. 

“Oh, very well,” he said; “but why in the name 
of common sense should any one go and roost on a 
roof? A man may try to escape by housetops in a 
town of course, but why on earth should any one 
want to prowl round the chimney pots of a de- 
tached house like this — and come of his own free 
will to do it?” 

He was still grumbling as he followed Keith out 
of the house into the open, and as they came to the 
corner by the drawing-room window they saw dis- 
tinctly and plainly a shapeless, shadowy form that 
ran like some unimaginably enormous cat or witch’s 
familiar spirit up the side of the house almost as 
easily as though it ran on level ground. 

Even as they stared, amazed and utterly be- 
wildered by the sight, they saw it reach the gutter 
and lay hold of it and swing itself up and over and 
disappear from sight on to the roof. 


286 The S o lit ary House 


“I . . . I . . . what . . . ?” stammered the 
Inspector. “If that don’t beat all!” 

Keith too was staring blankly upwards, trying 
vainly to conceive what it could be that they had 
seen and what it all meant. From the house Cap- 
tain Wallace’s voice called impatiently: 

“Wilks, Wilks, where are you? What are you 
doing?” 

“Watching the devil, I think, sir,” answered 
Wilks; “we have just seen him run up the side of 
the house and now he’s on the roof.” 

“What do you mean?” asked the Captain 
angrily; and even as he spoke there broke out 
above their heads a strange, wild tumult, a sound 
of running to and fro, of stamping and scrambling, 
of a displaced tile kicked loose and falling to the 
ground, and above all else a shrill, weird, in- 
articulate screaming like nothing they had ever 
heard before and that filled all the quiet night with 
its clamour. 

Strange beyond all conception was this mad 
tumult that had broken out so suddenly for no 
imaginable reason upon the house’s roof. There 
was one man began to mutter prayers and another 
crossed himself, but most stood still in blank be- 
wilderment, as though almost supposing their 
senses had betrayed them and they were the victims 
of some magic or enchantment. Of them all Keith 


The House Roof 


287 


was the first to recover himself, for some faint idea 
of the meaning of it began to come to him, and he 
ran into the house and up the stairs to where the 
policeman left to guard the skylight had shrunk 
away from it in terror. 

“There’s devils up there,” he gasped as Keith 
came running up the stairs; “a leg came through, 
a great leg all over hair,” and he pointed as he 
spoke to the open skylight. 

“Help me up,” said Keith briefly, and with a 
great leap he caught the edge of the skylight and 
swung there. 

“Rather you nor me,” muttered the constable, but 
took him round the legs and gave him an upward 
heave so that he was able to draw himself through 
to the roof, and as he crouched there with one knee 
on the slates and one still hanging down he saw 
two dark figures entwined, stamping, struggling, 
westling in fierce conflict to the accompaniment of 
a shrill, high screaming one of them uttered with- 
out ceasing. 

It was only for a moment or two it lasted as he 
rested there, half in, half out of the skylight, and 
watched the two combatants, clearly outlined 
against the sky, as they fought, broke loose, closed 
again and wrestled together between the chimney 
pots on the steep roof side. How they kept their 
footing at all was a wonder, and he saw them fall 


288 The Solitary House 


and recover themselves and resume their struggle 
as fiercely as before when at once there came the 
inevitable end. For again they fell, and this time 
did not recover their footing but, clasped in each 
other’s arms, rolled together on the roof and over 
and over with increasing momentum down its steep 
slope; against its low brick parapet their impact 
shattered, and over the edge in the midst of a 
shower of bricks and a length of broken gutter to 
fall crashing to the ground beneath. 

Keith drew back through the skylight and 
dropped down by the side of the pale constable. 

“It’s all over,” he said. 

He ran down the stairs and out of the house 
round to the side. A little group of men had al- 
ready gathered there, and in the midst lay, still 
clasped in each other’s arms, their hands at each 
other’s throats, that man whom Keith had seen be- 
fore and knew for Bert Wentworth and a naked 
hairy monstrous form that seemed only half human 
with its scowling bestial features and great pro- 
truding jaw on which the death foam was already 
gathering. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


The Explanation 

“Are they dead?” Captain Wallace asked. 

“This one’s alive,” answered Wilks, who was 
on his knees stooping over the two motionless forms. 
He put his hand over Bert Wentworth’s heart and 
felt it beating still, and then he turned to the other. 
“This one i9 dead, I think,” he said. “Is it a 
man?” 

The question was not surprising, for the dark 
skin, the bestial features, the unnatural length of 
limb compared with the small, squat trunk, and the 
extreme hairiness of the whole body made up a 
total that in the uncertain and varying light of the 
lanterns seemed indeed more animal than human, 
and to suggest that if the creature were really man 
then he belonged to some new type or perhaps was 
rather a reversion to the forerunners of the human 
race of a thousand generations back. 

“Beg pardon, sir,” said one of the police, com- 
ing up, “there’s this, sir.” 

“This” was a great flashing necklace of shining 
289 


290 The Solitary H o u s e 


diamonds that dangled from the man’s outstretched 
hand, and Keith cried excitedly: 

“The jewels, the lost jewels. You have found 
them at last?” 

“They’re all about,” said the man; “they came 
down with them from the roof; they’re mixed up 
everywhere with the bricks and the slates.” 

“Then that’s what they were doing up there,” 
cried Keith; “the jewellery must have been hidden 
on the roof when it was taken from where I put 
it in the rainwater tank. Bert Wentworth realized 
that his game was lost, and so he came here tonight 
to get the jewellery. He must have climbed out 
through the skylight on to the roof, and there he 
met this creature of his come with the same idea 
and they started fighting.” 

“Yes,” agreed the Captain, “it looks as though 
that were it. Carry them into the house. I hope 
the doctor won’t be long.” 

In a very few minutes the doctor appeared. Bert 
Wentworth he pronounced alive indeed, but not 
likely to survive many hours. His companion, the 
unknown creature of the woods, was already dead 
when the doctor looked at him, and indeed the 
injuries he had received were so terrible it was 
a wonder he had not been killed on the spot. 

“What is he? Where does he come from?” the 
doctor asked. “I have never seen any one like 


The E x p l a nation 


291 


him; he is more like one of the anthropoid apes 
than an ordinary human being. Where does he 
come from?” 

“From a tree top last,” answered Captain Wal- 
lace, “and that is about all we know.” 

“Very remarkable,” said the doctor; “look at 
the abnormal development of the great toe and 
indeed of all the muscles of the foot. He must 
have been able to climb like a cat.” 

“He could,” agreed Keith. “We saw him run 
up the side of this house just by the aid of a gutter 
pipe almost as though he were walking on the level. 
He must have been in the habit of doing that and 
of getting admittance by the skylight. Who could 
have guessed that when all the doors and windows 
were fastened so securely some one was climbing 
up the side of the house and over the roof and in 
and out by the skylight just as he liked?” 

The doctor went next to see Esme, and reported 
that she had passed into a sound sleep from which, 
he said, she was on no account to be wakened. 
He seemed to be very well satisfied with her con- 
dition and appeared to have some hope that this 
new shock she had suffered might have the effect 
of restoring her lost memory. 

Keith, who was utterly exhausted, got the doctor 
to attend to some of the numerous cuts and scratches 
he had endured, and then lay down on a couch in 


292 The Solitary House 


the drawing-room and dropped asleep almost at 
once. When he awoke it was late the next day, 
and Captain Wallace and Inspector Wilks were 
seated together by the window, smoking content- 
edly, with the air of men who had satisfactorily 
completed a good job of work. 

“Ah, you are awake, Mr. Norton,” said Captain 
Wallace, seeing him looking at them. “How do 
you feel?” 

“A bit stiff,” answered Keith. “Have I been 
asleep long? What time is it? How is Miss 
Esme?” 

“The doctor thinks she is getting on very well 
indeed,” answered the Captain with a slight smile. 
“Her memory has come back; the doctor said he 
hoped it would. He says she must be kept very 
quiet for the present, but he let me have a little 
chat with her this morning, and I had a talk with 
Mrs. Wentworth, too. Bert Wentworth will not 
live many hours, but he has made a full confes- 
sion, and I think I may say that everything is 
quite clear now. It seems Bert Wentworth has 
been at the bottom of the whole thing.” 

“I was sure of that,” said Keith; “and that crea- 
ture of his, that wild man or whatever he was?” 

“Bert Wentworth brought him with him from 
South Africa,” answered the Captain. “It is a 
curious story, but I see no reason to doubt it. 


The Explanation 


293 


Wentworth says his name was Joe — he had no 
other — and that he was of mixed European and 
negro birth, and that when he was a baby, only a 
few months old, he was stolen by baboons and 
brought up by them till he was twelve years of age. 
One hears stories of that sort of thing happening 
in India where sometimes native children wander 
into the jungle and live and grow up there with the 
beasts, but I never before heard of such a case in* 
South Africa. According to Wentworth’s story 
Joe became just like one of the baboons and lived 
with them as one of them till he was wounded and 
captured by natives during a raid the baboons 
made on some mealiefields. His story attracted 
some interest, and a missionary undertook his edu- 
cation, but he remained undeveloped mentally and 
very malicious and mischievous. He seemed as 
though he could not get rid of the traits brought out 
in him by his life among the baboons, though in 
time he learned to wear clothing, to behave with 
some regard for ordinary ways and customs, and 
to talk well enough, though he was always apt to 
fall back on an incoherent animal chattering when 
excited. Finally, he either ran away from the mis- 
sionary or was sent off on account of some espe- 
cially malicious trick, and came in contact with 
Wentworth, who seems to have realized that such 
a creature might be useful under certain circum- 


294 The Solitary House 


stances. At the time Wentworth was in funds and 
he was thinking of returning to England to make 
an attempt to reinstate himself with his step-father, 
old Mr. Wentworth, and get hold of some or all 
of his money. He brought Joe back with him, and 
setting himself to watch his step-father and Dick 
Wentworth who had taken his place as heir, soon 
discovered that Dick was secretly married and that 
there was a chance for him to act. His first step 
was to inform old Mr. Wentworth anonymously of 
the secret marriage, in the hope that the old man 
would at once destroy the will making Dick his 
heir. Though he does not say so, I think there is 
no doubt his plans also included murdering his 
step-father before he could make a fresh will, in 
which case Bert would have been able to claim the 
greater portion of the estate under the marriage 
settlements. Or, if Dick could be effectually dis- 
posed of, either by a second murder or by fasten- 
ing on him the guilt of his uncle’s death, Bert would 
have taken it all. The plan was quite a good one, 
and I think might very well have succeeded but 
for your unexpected, unprepared for, and some- 
what unauthorized interference, Mr. Norton. Bert 
Wentworth seems to have begun operations by send- 
ing his telegram to his step-father to inform him 
that Dick was married and was staying here. As 
it happened, Dick got to know the contents of this 


295 


The Explanation 

telegram, rushed over in panic-stricken haste and 
whirled his wife away, leaving everything just as 
it was and leaving even the store of jewellery he had 
collected as a nest-egg for emergencies. But old 
Mr. Wentworth met with a slight accident as he was 
hurrying here and never arrived at all, and Bert 
Wentworth was very much worried by your ap- 
pearance on the scene. He had not wished to 
show himself, but he had left his creature, Joe, in 
the wood with orders to watch carefully and re- 
port everything that happened. On hearing of 
your arrival he came to see you and failed to make 
out who you were or what you wanted. At that 
time he knew nothing about the hidden jewellery, 
but Joe, some time in his climbing and watch- 
ing, had got to know of its existence, and though I 
don’t suppose he realized what it was or under- 
stood its value, he was attracted by the shining of 
the jewels and was planning in his own way to get 
possession of it without saying anything to Bert 
Wentworth. It was for that reason he came prowl- 
ing about the house in the way he did, and that 
was why he made his first attack on you. He 
thought you were hunting for the jewellery, too. 
Then Miss Esme appeared in search of her sister 
who had vanished from her home without giving 
any explanation. She took you for Dick Went- 
worth, and it seems that on her first visit when she 


296 The Solitary House 

went upstairs, in the belief that her sister was 
hidden there by you, she had a glimpse of Joe 
peeping at her through the bedroom window. He 
had a way of lowering himself from the gutter to 
the window sills beneath and either peeping 
through the glass or else letting himself in that 
way to resume his search for the jewellery. Per- 
haps he was peeping through like that when he got 
his first glimpse of it. Anyhow, his face at the 
window gave Miss Esme a great fright, but some 
further information came to her to make her certain 
her sister was here, and so she returned and was 
attacked in the wood by Joe and rescued by you. 
I gather it was because her memory was gone and 
she did not know what to do that she stayed on 
here and Joe was still lurking in the wood, watch- 
ing you both. He found out somehow, perhaps 
he watched you hiding it, where you had put the 
jewellery, and he removed it and hid it on the roof 
of the house near one of the chimney pots. I sup- 
pose he thought it quite safe there, and indeed I 
don’t suppose any one would ever have looked for 
it on the housetop. Everything else you know, I 
think. Bert Wentworth, as soon as Joe informed 
him of his cousin’s return, let old Mr. Wentworth 
know and tried to dispose of you but failed. He 
says you were getting on his nerves; at times he 
suspected you of being a plain clothes detective. 


The Explanation 


297 


Watching from the wood he saw old Mr. Wentworth 
destroy his will, an action that was the poor old 
gentleman’s death warrant, for on his way back 
through the wood to his car he was attacked by 
Bert Wentworth and Joe and murdered. They did 
not attempt to hide the body, as they hoped sus- 
picion would fall on Dick, one of whose handker- 
chiefs they had used for committing the crime. 
But Dick rather spoilt that part of the plan by 
coming to search the wood for his uncle, and 
chancing to stumble across them. On seeing them 
he guessed at once what they had done — and shared 
his uncle’s fate. It was necessary to dispose of 
him, Bert Wentworth told me, for their own safety. 
Old Mr. Wentworth’s chauffeur, by the way, did 
not report what had happened, or say anything 
about his master being missing, as the opportunity 
struck him as a favourable one for disposing of the 
car and decamping with the money. We have 
traced the car, but we have not got him yet, though 
I hope we shall soon. I think there’s no doubt 
that by this time Bert Wentworth was beginning to 
see that things weren’t happening quite as he liked, 
and apparently he decided to retire from the scene 
for a while and perhaps try to establish a claim to 
his step-father’s estate later on. But, unluckily 
for himself, he decided to take with him the jewel- 
lery he had somehow got to know had been hidden 


298 The Solitary House 


by Joe on the housetop, and he was in the very act 
of pocketing it when Joe himself appeared, most 
likely on the same errand, for I expect even he had 
realized that File’s Wood was getting too hot to 
hold him any longer. Mrs. Wentworth’s sister, 
Miss Esme, by the way, had heard that things were 
happening here. The boy you sent for us, Mr. 
Norton, had let his tongue wag pretty freely, and 
Miss Esme got the idea that you were in danger and 
started off to see what she could do to help. She 
was on the way through the wood here when Joe 
saw her and attacked her. The failure of that 
attempt of his made him feel he had better clear 
off in a hurry, but no doubt he felt he wanted to 
take with him the pretty toys he had secreted on 
the house roof. When he got there, infuriated at 
finding Bert Wentworth beforehand with the jewel- 
lery, he flew at him with the result you know. And 
on the whole,” concluded Captain Wallace thought- 
fully, “I suppose Bert Wentworth’s death has 
robbed the gallows of as pretty a scoundrel as ever 
swung at a rope’s end.” 

There was still much to be done, much to be seen 
to and arranged, and later on inquests had to be 
held on the four men whose deaths had followed 
one another in such swift and tragic succession. 
Fortunately the sequence of events was quite plain 
by now, and the fact that there was no longer any 


299 


The Explanation 

mystery about the affair or any doubt as to the 
identity or motives of the criminals, prevented any 
very great public interest being aroused. One or 
two paragraphs relating to the “wild man,” “the 
man of the woods,” “the human baboon,” as the 
papers called him according to fancy, were indeed 
published, but did not attract much attention, be- 
ing set down as due to the unpruned imagination of 
some junior reporter. Reenie and Esme were 
therefore spared a notoriety and public excitement 
that would have added much to what they had been 
called upon to go through, and even their ordeal 
in the witness box before the coroner was made 
as easy for them as possible. 

By the duplicate will old Mr. Wentworth had 
not destroyed Dick Wentworth had been made his 
chief heir, inheriting about two-thirds of his for- 
tune of which the rest went to certain charities. 
There was no opposition to probate being granted 
to Reenie as heir to her husband, and one day very 
soon there came to Keith a little note signed by her, 
asking him to help her by undertaking the charge 
of her financial interests, since she was now prin- 
cipal proprietor of a large and flourishing busi- 
ness. 

Keith had been dismally wondering what was to 
become of him and whether he would ever again 
hear of Esme, who was still weak and ill and whom 


300 The Solitary House 


he had hardly seen, and never seen alone, since 
that last eventful tragic night. The note asked 
him to call on Reenie at a certain address, but 
when he got there it was Esme who received him 
alone in the drawing-room. 

She told him Reenie would come soon, and then 
a sudden shyness seemed to fall between them, and 
she sat looking at the toe of her small slipper and 
he sat opposite and dared not speak a word. It 
was she who broke the silence first. 

“I want to thank you,” she began tremulously, 
“for . . . for. . . .” 

“Please don’t,” he interrupted. “I did nothing. 
You owe me nothing.” 

“I don’t think it’s very nice of you,” she pouted, 
“to call my life nothing.” 

“But ” he began. 

“Well, I do owe it you,” she interrupted, looking 
at him suddenly, “don’t I?” 

He did not answer. He had gone very pale, for 
it seemed to him he had read something very plainly 
in her eyes. 

“Esme, Esme,” he muttered, “you are rich 
now.” 

“Haven’t a single, solitary penny in the world,” 
she declared with relish. “Thank goodness,” she 
added meditatively. 

“But your sister . . 


The Explanation 


301 


“My sister’s not me,” said Esme. “I’m living 
with her just now, but she could turn me into the 
street any minute. Perhaps she will, too,” she 
added, and she looked up at him very pathetically 
to see what he thought of that. 

“She wouldn’t do that,” he said. 

“She might,” Esme insisted. “What I mean is, 
I’m not safe,” and again she looked up at him, and 
then went on rather quickly: “You see we have no 
men folk in our family and no one to help us, and 
so Reenie thought perhaps you could help her to 
run the business and be her manager, so to say, and 
look after things. She would give you £800 a 
year.” 

He could not speak for a moment; he felt as 
though he were suffocating. 

“Would that be enough,” asked Esme inno- 
cently, “to support a — wife?” 

Still he did not speak, but he made a sudden 
movement forward, and on a sudden she was in his 
arms. It was after an appreciable interval that 
she remarked thoughtfully: 

“But it took some pretty plain speaking on my 
part — now the last man who proposed to me . . .” 

But he stopped that reminiscence with a kiss upon 
her lips. 


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